One Moment Can Change A Life
by Nay1
Summary: Its funny how one moment...or lack thereof...can change the course of life for that person. What would Sakura be like had Ino never befriended her? How would things change or stay the same? My first fic ever!
1. Formation of the Teams

Hello all! This is my first attempt at writing, well, anything outside of school related works. I'm sure its filled with mindless errors or mispellings of things. So, constructive criticism will be very helpful. Flames will be ignored. It's a lame first try, but I hope you all enjoy it!

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One Moment Can Change A Life

Chapter 1: Formation of the Teams

The sun was setting on another normal day in the village of Konoha. Everything was going along as it normally would on any given day. No one was left in the park at this time except for one crying girl. Her pink hair covering all of her head, and small hands were hiding the tears streaming down her face. Sadly, this was considered a normal day for the girl, and she knew it would continue this way.

The alarm clock rang loudly for the start of a new day. Before long Sakura picked up the clock and threw it into one of her walls. 'Why does the alarm go off when I'm finally getting a good sleep?' Forcing herself out of bed and flicking her shoulder length hair out of her face, Sakura went through her normal routine. Showering, dressing in her normal red dress sorry, don't know what it's called and shorts, and ate breakfast. She had to make her own breakfast everyday, her parents were always out. 'Crap, I almost forgot…'. Sakura walked back up to her room to look for her newly issued headband for graduating from the Academy. An annoyed look appeared on her face as she started digging through an untidy room for the headband. "Maybe I should clean up every once in a while…this is just frustrating." After finally finding it sitting plainly seen on top of her desk, Sakura left out to the explanatory meeting for becoming a Genin.

'This headband is really uncomfortable!' Sakura half sighed half yelled to herself. She forcefully and painfully had to tug another strand of her long bangs that got caught in metal part of the band with the village logo on it. She never minded having her hair reach down to the top of her eyes, covering the large forehead Sakura despised more than anything. Now it was her headband's duty to cover it, but now it seemed more of a pain than she had originally thought. Sakura was so focused on loosening her hair from the unrelenting grip of her headband; she hadn't noticed that she was walking close by to one of her least favorite classmates: Ino Yamanaka.

After loosening the last bit of hair that was caught, Sakura heard a sound she had become all too familiar with. "Hey big forehead! Having trouble getting that thing around something that wide?" Sakura stopped and turned around to see a confident yet cocky Ino catching up to her. Giving her a nasty glare, Sakura blatantly asked, "What the hell do you want, Ino-pig?" "Oh, nothing…just the morning joke at your expense….the usual." Sakura continued to glare as Ino walked by her to the meeting. After Ino had walked far enough ahead of her, Sakura continued walking, biting her lower lip while she did so. It's not that she wasn't used to the teasing, but it hurt none the same. Over time, Sakura learned to force back her tears, but could never fully remove her bad habit of biting her lip whenever one of those "incidents" (as Sakura preferred to call them).

After what seemed like an entire year of walking, Sakura finally made it to the meeting for the newly made genin. Sliding open the door and stepping in as quietly as possible, she found she was the last student to arrive. 'Wait…I'm not last today…' Sakura thought as she saw two empty seats in the room. She couldn't place her finger on who was last, but to Sakura it didn't matter. She never liked any of her classmates, and tried to avoid being near any of them as much as possible. Taking her seat in the last row closest to the window, Sakura decided to figure out who was the one person missing.

'Let's see…' Sakura began to ponder. 'There is that Hyuuga girl down there, sitting next to…oh great, the jokers themselves'. Looking over the row that contained Kiba, Chouji, and Shikamaru, Sakura decided to move onward. 'Oh wait…I forgot that bug guy…what's his name again? Who cares, it doesn't matter anyway.' Moving her eyes to another part of the room she saw the two people she despised most of all. Ino was sitting in the chair closest to the Uchiha prodigy, Sasuke. Sakura knew all to well why she hates the two of them; Ino with her constant teasing of Sakura's forehead, and Sasuke who never had a weakness, always better than everyone. 'Well, at least he hates Ino almost as much as I do.' Sakura thought looking down at a rather annoyed Sasuke trying to ignore Ino as much as possible. Before Sakura could even rule out who was the missing student, an orange clad, blonde haired boy burst into the room shouting "Sorry I'm late! I couldn't get any hot water for my ramen! Wait what group am I in!?"

As Naruto went rushing down to the last available seat in the room, Sakura slouched in her chair, mentally scolding herself for not seeing that it was the most annoying student that just happened to be missing. "So…! What group am I in!?" Naruto yelled even louder than he normally would have. "We haven't started yet, man you're a troublesome idiot" replied an annoyed Shikamaru as Iruka walked into the room. Iruka had already figured out that Naruto was causing quite the commotion. He always was the one who would start a huge fuss. "Quiet down Naruto. I'll start the meeting in just a moment".

"Since all of you have now graduated from the academy…" Iruka began. Naruto began squirming at what the news could possibly be, while Sakura just stared out the window at nothing; what she normally does during school. She was smart enough to know all the answers, so she never paid much attention during class. "…and have now become genin, each student will be put into groups of three, then be assigned a jounin instructor to be your new sensei." The last part of the sentence managed to catch Sakura's attention 'What?! Why do I have to be stuck with all these jerks!?'. Sakura noticed she had a shocked look on her face, and quickly changed back to her neutral glance. "I will now announce who is in what team, and all the teams are based on each one of your individual skills you've shown during your academy days."

Before even the first name was announced, it was obvious Sakura was anxious. Her hands were tightly gripped to her knees, and she unconsciously began lightly tapping the back of her right foot. The dull classroom began to feel very cold and airy now. 'Just get on with it!' "First, Ino Yamanaka…" 'Oh please I can't be in her team…I'd rather kill myself!' Sakura's tapping began to quicken. "…Shikamaru Nara,…" Iruka continued. 'please…' Sakura's eyes were glued shut, as she could feel sweat began to form in her fave. The teasing was hard enough as it was. There was now way she could handle endless torture day in and day out. "…and Chouji Akimichi." After hearing the final name for the first team, Sakura let out a held breath and her whole body began to relax. She looked to the other end of the room to see Ino pouting that she wasn't put in Sasuke's group. 'Heh, at least she gets to be miserable for a while' Sakura silently smirked to herself. "Now, the next team…" Iruka announced as Sakura broke away from her thoughts. 'Damn, I forgot that I still have to be in a team with two other people'. Laying her head on the table, she at least could relax a little more from now on. After all, nothing could be worse than being in a group with Ino. "Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno,…" 'Crap…I still get someone I completely hate…how can it get worse than this?' "…and Naruto Uzumaki." Suddenly, out of nowhere came a loud thud from inside the room. It took everyone a few seconds to see that the noise was Sakura slamming her head into the table.


	2. Sensei and the Test

Guess what? I was able to write a second chapter before I put this up! So, here are two chapters to start out with. I feel like I'm getting away from the story I was trying to make. If you feel that way too please tell me plz be honest. Again, hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 2: Sensei and the Test

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock's second hand clicked away in the mostly empty and quiet room. Well, it wasn't about to be quiet anymore. "Ahhh! When's our teacher getting here anyway!?" Naruto yelled jumping from his seat to the front of the room.

"Why don't you just shut up, idiot. Its not like yelling is going to make him get here faster" sighed the cool-headed Uchiha. "Well…I'm bored! Why's he so late!? This is annoying!"

The yelling only made Sakura's head start to hurt. She was trying to block out all signs of her "teammates" buy planting her head face down on the table and lying on her arms. 'Well…if he's late at least maybe I can sleep a bit…' However, this too didn't last long, as Naruto needed something to keep himself occupied.

Finally noticing that Sakura was even there, Naruto walked over to the seemingly sleeping girl. "Hey, she's that forehead girl right Sasuke? I forgot she was even in our group." Naruto tried to whisper all the way across the room to his other teammate. Of course, Naruto didn't know Sakura was still awake. Sasuke turned to glare at Naruto. "Moron, if she's sleeping you should leave her alone. And yes, that's…hm…I guess they do call her forehead girl. Never really bothered to learn her name."

Hearing her ever popular nickname, Sakura just dug her face deeper, and clenched her fists together. 'Now I'm even being made fun of by the class clown and local idiot…this is a new low, even for me.' Sakura retrained herself from wailing on her newly named Team 7 members. She hated her nickname, but picking a fight would only make them hate her before they even met their sensei.

"Well, I'm still tired of waiting." After a few seconds of quiet, Naruto got an amusing look on his face. "Hey, Sasuke." Naruto called over while walking to the chalkboard. "What is it dead last?" 'Heh, at least I'm not the only one with a bad title' Sakura silently thought to herself. Ignoring Sasuke's last comment, Naruto brought one of the erasers to the edge of the door, and proceeded to stick it to the top of the door. "Heh, this will teach him for being late on the first day." the prankster announced. "Idiot, that's got to be one of the most stupid ideas you've ever had. Not only is that such a dumb prank, our teacher is a jounin. I doubt he'd fall for such an obvious trick." Sasuke said proceeding to sit down. 'Although…I do think at least the explanation better be good for being so late'

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock continued to count the minutes. After what seemed like forever, noise could be heard outside the room. A grey haired head popped through the door as it opened. A slight thud could be heard as the eraser bounced of the jounin's head. Naruto began laughing while Sasuke and Sakura merely glared back to the immature kid.

"Hm, that was rather immature of all of you…apparently I'm not going to like this team very much." Team 7's sensei placed the eraser back and walked to the middle of the room. "I would apologize but this is Naruto we're talking about. It's probably only going to get worse." Sakura lazily said, getting herself up from the chair she felt like she was sitting in for hours. "Well then, I suppose we should just go ahead and introduce ourselves to get to know each other I suppose." the teacher said practically ignoring Sakura's comment on what he figured to be his least liked member. "Well, what do ya mean by 'introduce'?" questioned the annoyed Naruto. Looking back at Naruto with his one visible eye, sensei went on to explain. "Well, you know. Your name, likes, dislikes, dreams…that sort of thing." All three genin looked rather annoyed at this proposition, but none of them openly complained about it. "Well you're the one who was late, you start!" Naruto said returning the annoyed look their new sensei had given them.

"Well, my name is Kakashi Hatake. As far as my likes, dislikes, and dreams…well...I don't feel like telling you." Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura all gave a rather annoyed looking glare. "I suppose it would be your turn now." Kakashi replied to the non-existent complaining. Naruto was the first to jump up to "announce" himself. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki! Ramen is my favorite food, ever. But I hate the three minutes it takes to actually cook the instant ramen I have at home. I enjoy trying out different kinds of ramen and comparing them to other ones I've tried. Oh, and my dream is to become the greatest Hokage who ever lived, so people will look up to me and respect me!"

'Ugh, if he ever becomes Hokage, I'd rather live in a village of dirt than this place' Sakura silently scoffed at the blonde's seemingly impossible dream. "Well, how about you over there" Kakashi said looking over to Sakura's direction. 'I guess I better get this over with' "My name is Sakura Haruno, I have no likes, I hate pretty much everyone, and I don't feel like saying my dreams right now." Sakura explained, almost putting a sarcastic tone on the last part. "Funny, you don't really look like the doom and gloom type, what with the pink hair and all." Kakashi returned the sarcasm. Giving an angry look Sakura felt like shouting, but kept herself under control. "What does it matter to you then?" "I would guess not much, but it won't help getting teamwork going in the right direction."

Not wanting to continue the pointless argument any further, Kakashi turned to the final member of the group. "Hm, I see we have a Uchiha on this team." Finally getting up and giving an annoyed sigh, Sasuke went on to introduce himself. "Fine. Sasuke Uchiha, there are many thinks I don't like, and few I do. My goal is to revive my clan and destroy…someone." Not wanting to pick another fight, the grey haired jounin decided not to inquire about whom that "someone" was.

"Well, now that that is out of the way…" Kakashi began talking to his team, but acted like it was almost to no one. "…our first mission starts tomorrow morning. I can't say anything specific, but it's basically some survival training." "Didn't we already do some of that at the academy?" asked a now calm Sakura. "Yeah! Forehead girl's right. Let's go on a real mission!" Immediately giving Naruto a death glare, forcing the shout back, Sakura replied," Don't…call…me…that…" Even Naruto wasn't dumb enough to know what that look meant. 'Great…the training tomorrow is going to go smoothly.' Kakashi silently groaned. "I suppose its not quite training to be more precise. It's more like a test." "Didn't we just take one to get out of this place?" all three students asked at the same time. "Yes…but that's beside the point. Not all the students who graduate actually get to become genin. Of the twenty-seven students that graduated, only nine actually get to become ninja. The rest, are sent back." As Kakashi expected, all were shocked, especially Naruto. "I'll meet you all tomorrow at 5a.m. in the morning. Bring any gear you want, but don't bother to eat breakfast." Kakashi mentioned as he was about to leave the room. "Wait…why can't we do that Kakashi-sensi? Shouldn't we eat to keep our strength up?" Sakura asked. She at least enjoyed the quiet of breakfast in the morning. "Because if you bother to eat any, you'll just throw it back up during the training."

All three of them looked rather confused about what he meant. After all, the training couldn't be that intense…could it? Sakura was starting to get a nervous look on her face. She knew it wasn't going to be as easy as the academy's tests.

Early, well, very early the next day, all three would be genins arrived at their assigned training ground. Sakura was the first to arrive. She was up all night worrying about what training could possibly make them that sick. Her hungry stomach growled that Sakura refused to feed it. "Oh shut up…" she said talking to no one. She took a seat on the ground waiting for the others to arrive. It was only a few minutes before Sasuke and Naruto came to meet her. Naruto had a depressed look on his face, which actually surprised Sakura. "Oh man…I'm so hungry…I want some ramen…" Naruto said putting a hand to his growling stomach. "Idiot…that's what he wants. Kakashi wants us to feel weak and worn out from the start. Just ignore it and it'll be fine." After being lectured by Sasuke once again, Naruto went from depressed to angry in an instant. "Well, it's not my fault people have to actually eat. I bet both of you are hungry, right fore…" Naruto immediately stopped after seeing Sakura's death glare for a second time. "Uh…I mean Sakura…" Showing no sign of giving a reply, Sakura turned back to moving her hair in her fingers…and trying to get out any strands that got caught in the headband. 'Damn I hate this thing.'

Hours upon hours of waiting started. The sun was almost at its peak. Where the heck was Kakashi? All three of them looked exhausted from standing around. After staying up the entire night, and hunger contributing, Sakura could barely keep her eyes open. As she was about to fall asleep when a puff of smoke appeared and their teacher finally appeared. "Good morning everyone. Sorry I'm late. I was just thinking about the purpose of life and forgot for a while." Kakashi said with an innocent look on what little of his face was revealed. heh, I love his little excuses Upon hearing his sensei's lame and obviously false excuse, Naruto jumped up and proceeded to yell, "LIAR!" at the top of his voice. "Now now, yelling at me won't change anything." Kakashi said to the expected reply.

"So, what's this test you're supposed to give us?" asked Sasuke speaking for the first time that day. "Eager to get started then?" Kakashi replied dodging the question and setting an alarm. Putting the clock on a stump, the masked jounin turned to his students and pulled out two bells. "This…is your test." "Bells?" "Yes Naruto, bells. The rules are quite simple. You have until noon to take a bell from me. If you can't get one by the time the alarm goes off, if you don't even get close, you'll be tied over there and have to watch the other member's eat lunch I know that's not the "exact" rule. But I think this wording works a bit better IMO and get none for yourself. Oh, and you can use whatever tricks you like…you can even use shuriken."

"Wait a second." Sakura began, "Even for training, aren't shuriken a bit, well, dangerous? I mean, one of us could get seriously hurt." Kakashi showed no emotion, obviously expecting this response from one of them. "Well, that's one of the points. You won't ever get a bell from me if you don't come at me as if you were going to kill me." Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto all had confused looks on their faces. "I suppose we should get started then. Ready…go."

Two light sounding wooshes went by as Sakura and Sasuke disappeared into the woods for cover and to plan their own attack strategy. Sasuke was hiding near the top of a nearby tree, while Sakura was laying low under some bushes. Lying on the ground wasn't a good idea Sakura quickly found out as her eyelids began to sink some. 'Damn…I really wish I had gotten some sleep.'

'Hm…they've hidden themselves rather well.' Kakashi thought analyzing their movements. "Hey! Kakashi-sensei!" Snapping out of thoughtful state of mind, Kakashi found that Naruto hadn't moved at all. "It's stupid to go hide. I'm only gonna fight fair in one on one!" His sensei almost had an amused look on his face. "I didn't think it was possible, but you're even dumber than you were before. Do you honestly think you can beat me in a 'fair' fight?" "Keh, I'm gonna be hokage one day. I'm gonna beat everyone!"

Naruto quickly began his "attack" on his teacher. Before Naruto even got there, Kakashi pulled out a book from his back pouch and began to read it. This only angered Naruto even more as he started throwing punches and kicks at random. Being of much higher skill, Kakashi easily avoided all of Naruto's attacks. Eventually Naruto began to tire of hitting nothing but air. 'Jeez, what an idiot.' Sasuke thought while looking over the supplies of weapons he had brought. "So…have I made my point yet? Or do you just enjoy flailing around?" Kakashi lazily said to a sweaty, tired Naruto. "Gr…I'm just getting started! Shadow clone jutstu!" sorry, I'm really bad with most of the Japanese names for attacks

Suddenly, there were seven Narutos instead of one. 'Shadow clones…at least he knows one impressive jutsu.' thought Kakashi finally actually paying some attention to the Narutos. Completely surrounding his sensei with clones, Naruto charged from all sides. Much to the surprise of everyone, one of the clones grabbed Kakashi in the back. "Ha! Got you now!" Before even hitting the ground, there was a large puff of smoke surrounded Kakashi and revealed nothing but a log. "What?! A replacement! Where'd he go!? Get out here and fight me!" Naruto began to yell angrily that he had been so easily tricked. Despite his annoyed mood, the young blonde spotted a small shine on the ground. A bell was on the ground next to a nearby tree. "Huh?" After realizing it was a bell, Naruto ran right up to it and though 'I can't believe he actually dropped one, lucky me!' But before he could even bend down to grab the bell, a rope flew up, caught Naruto by the leg, and hoisted him up into the tree. Kakashi immediately reappeared to take back the bell he "dropped".

"So, are you done making yourself looking like an idiot? After all, a ninja has to be wary of traps. No mission would be as easy as simply going up to it and taking it. Even you should've figured that much out." As he finished his little lecture, to sets of ninja stars and shuriken were heading right to Kakashi. The weapons did hit, but it wasn't Kakashi. Another log appeared right where he had previously been. 'Crap.' thought both Sasuke and Sakura simultaneously. Both their locations were revealed now. Sakura couldn't see where Sasuke went, but she didn't care anyway. 'Like I really care what happens to that arrogant jerk.'

After being on the ground for so long, Sakura felt that a tree would be a better place to hide. Having no sleep and no breakfast, she found it hard to even start to go up. She only made it halfway up the tree before her weakened state made her fall all the way back to the ground. "Ow…that really hurt." Sakura whispered to herself after taking a second to piece together what had just happened. She used her arms to push herself back up, but the ground didn't feel like grass. It felt more like, "Pavement?" Getting a better look at her surroundings, Sakura found she wasn't in the training grounds anymore. Rather she was back in the village, in the middle of the school's park. 'How the hell did I get over here?' She mentally questioned.

Still not on her feet, Sakura turned around to see a group of young kids playing. Well, they were playing anyway. Now they had stopped and were staring at the pink haired girl on the ground. After a few seconds of silent staring, one child began laughing. "Look how clumsy fore-head girl is! She can't even walk without falling!" Sakura was still utterly confused as to what was going on, and her face showed it too. It was only when all the kids began laughing at the boy's previous comment did Sakura notice what was going on. Then came many taunts of, "What's wrong forehead girl? Can't get up?" and "Is that forehead weighing you down or something?" mixed within the laughter.

This, of course, was the one thing Sakura couldn't handle herself with. Her eyes began to feel watery from the laughing and she tried to get up to run away. Much to her shock her legs refused to move. "What's…going on?" a saddened and scared Sakura quietly asked. All of a sudden all the sounds seemed to be magnified by the second. It was becoming unbearable and Sakura did all she could do in the situation. She covered her ears with her hands and laid on the ground it a sad attempt to block it all out.

Kakashi was crouching on a tree branch above where Sakura was on the ground. Looking down, all he saw was a terrified Sakura curled up, hands grasped over her ears, and crying to herself. "I guess she isn't as mentally tough as I thought she was."

note: I skipped the whole Sasuke part. It happens the exact same way and I don't feel like writing exactly what happened when (hopefully) we should all know.

"Brriing! Brrring!" The alarm rang as the hour hit noon. "Out of time already?" a bored Kakashi said. "That display was one of the most pathetic I've ever seen. All three of you should just quit now before you seriously hurt yourselves. All three of you failed to realize you're part of a _team _now. Instead all you did was worry about and rely on yourselves."

"Hey…wait a sec! You only have two bells!" Sakura shouted back at their sensei. "How are we supposed to work as a team when we know one of us can't pass? How is that fair?" Both Naruto and Sasuke nodded in agreement. Kakashi let out a slight sigh and began to speak.

"That's exactly the point. I needed to see if you could overcome that. Even though one of you was guaranteed to fail, all three of you would if none of you got a bell. Someone needed to sacrifice themselves to help the other two pass. That is the sort of situation that occurs on an almost daily basis for ninja. At least it seems you're starting to get it a bit. I suppose I'll give you one more chance. Well, I guess its time for lunch now. However, since Naruto had the most idiotic plan probably ever thought of, he doesn't get to eat. Oh, and if anyone gives Naruto some of their food. You all fail immediately."

"What!?" shouted an utterly shocked Naruto. "But I'm hungry! You even told us not to eat breakfast!" In almost a flash Naruto found himself tied to one of the three wooden polls sticking out of the ground. 'Serves him right for being a complete idiot.' Sakura thought as she opened her lunch to eat. The very second it was open she started eating rapidly. Not eating breakfast certainly took its toll on everyone.

When Sakura and Sasuke were about halfway done with their meal, the growling of Naruto's stomach couldn't be ignored any longer. "Arh! Can you shut that thing up Naruto? At least let us eat in quiet!" Sakura yelled as if talking to some child. "Well, it's not MY fault I'm hungry!" "What does it matter then?! There's no way you could pass with your stupid antics. If Sasuke and I are at least full, both of us could probably get the bells together."

"That's not the point though." The reserved Uchiha said. "It's just like in the old saying, a link of chains is only as strong as its weakest link. If Naruto's hungry and not at full speed, we won't have any chance at the bells." As he finished his little speech, Sasuke lifted the rest of his meal to Naruto. "Just eat it. Kakashi isn't around anyway, he probably won't notice." "What!? Are you crazy!?" a shocked Sakura yelled. "Didn't you hear what he said? If we feed him, we all fail!" "But if we don't have a strong team, we'll fail anyway." Sasuke muttered back. He really didn't feel like dealing with the hotheaded girl at this point. Knowing she wasn't going to win this argument, Sakura just went back to eating her meal. 'Why the hell does he have to be so freakin' smart all the time. I hate it when he does stuff like that.'

As Sakura looked back up to see what Sasuke was going to do, she saw Naruto plowing down on the rest of Sasuke's lunch. 'Oh crap…this isn't going to end well.' And Sakura's fears were well justified. Before any of them could react, Kakashi appeared before them with a seriously angry look in his eyes.

"And what do you think you're doing?" Kakashi's evil glare scared all three of them to the point where they couldn't even move. "Didn't I tell you that if you feed Naruto you'll fail?" Both Sakura and Naruto were too afraid to say anything to their furious teacher. It was Sasuke who worked up the nerve. "Well, we won't pass if we _don't _feed Naruto. Even if it's against the 'rules' there's no point in following them if our team can't succeed." The two sitting next to Sasuke were even more scared now that Sasuke had stood up to Kakashi. "Uh…yea, exactly." Naruto barely muttered out. Still as angry as he was before, Kakashi slowly replied, "So…you're saying you would risk immediate failure to give a better chance of succeeding of you're team?" Sakura finally worked up her nerve to finally speak, well, sort of. What came out was little more than a whisper. "Um…well…yea."

"Then, of course this means…" All three students recoiled fearing what punishment might befall them. "…you pass." Kakashi finished with a lighthearted look on his face. "huh….wait…you're serious!" Naruto was utterly confused. "That's right. You were able to figure out the teamwork lesson I was trying to teach you. So you all pass." Kakashi quickly noticed their almost humorous shocked expressions on all their faces. Sakura just sat down with a much relieved look on her face. "Jeez, I thought I was gonna die…"


	3. A Real Mission

Hiya again everyone! I was excited about putting up my first story ever, I decided to write the next chapter today. I'm trying to do things a bit differently from now on. I felt that the story was getting a bit too "generalized" as in, not really spending time on Sakura's thoughts and such. Not to mention it becomes dull at times writing stuff most of the readers should know what happened. So I hope the new perspective works out. Oh and this... Thanks .ulqui for giving my first review ever! Please review so I know how to make my writing better!

Author's Note: All thought text (ex. 'I like writing' ) will all be in Sakura's perspective unless otherwise said.

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Chapter 3: A Real Mission Pt.1

"Ow ow ow ow ow!" Naruto continued to yell as the furry cat continued to claw at his face. 'These missions are so boring…they're just stupid chores.' Sakura whined to herself. 'Let's see, walking dogs, cleaning a garage, and chasing this stupid cat around for hours…I didn't become a ninja for this.'

After making their way back to the missions office, Naruto was back to being Naruto, not some cat scratcher. 'At least seeing Naruto get pummeled by a cat was funny.' Suddenly a huge, too much make-up on old lady came running up to grab the cat. She immediately began crushing it in her death grip hug saying how much she missed her precious cat. "Ew…now I know why it ran away…' Looking at her teammates, Sakura could tell that's what everyone else was thinking too.

Iruka began looking through the other available missions to hand out. "Let's see, next up I suppose you can go water some…" "No way!" An obviously mad Naruto yelled out. "I've had enough of these stupid chores! If we've officially become ninja now, I wanna go on a ninja mission for real! Not some dumb community service!"

"Naruto…you and you're team have just become genin. You will take your D missions until we say otherwise." The hokage calmly responded, almost as if he were expecting this reaction. "Wait…D? That sounds low." Naruto asked with his usual confused look. Iruka decided to field this question with a plain annoyance in his voice, "Missions are rated as certain…" He was immediately cut off by Sakura, who was just as annoyed as Naruto was about their current mission status.

"Yea whatever. Everyone but Naruto knows this. We're genin so we get stuck with crappy "missions" (giving the quote marks with her fingers) and not actually learn anything. For once I actually agree with the loudmouth. How about something actually worth it?"

'Well…at least those two share one thing in common.' a bored Kakashi briefly looking up from his book. "What's with both of your attitude?! You're in no position to demand anything" Iruka said back, his annoyance turning closer to just anger. Not having said anything in a while (well, a while for Naruto at least), the blonde spat back "No no no no no! How's that fair at all? We want a real mission." After finishing, sucked in one big breath, and closed his mouth shut. "You're childish games won't get you anywhere. Quit it now!" Now just a plain angry Iurka said.

As his face started to turn a deep red, Hokage finally broke the silence, "Fine. We'll give you a C mission if you just leave and quit giving us a headache." After that finally Naruto let out the held breath. "Finally." Muttered Sakura under her breath. "So…what is it?" "It's just an escort mission, you're job is to protect the client to the Mist village and continue it until he finishes his work."

A knock came from the door and an old, fairly drunk old man with balding grey hair came in. "It's the date I asked for, so who's the group escorting me? I wanna get outta here already." "So, this is the client?" Sasuke asked rather seriously. "You can't be serious…you're sending these little brats out? I thought you were going to give me someone competent…" Already annoyed with their protectee, Sakura joined in the confused conversation, "We are competent. Look at the headband we're ninja. And we were just assigned this mission. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to insult us." "You better watch your…"

"Tazuna…" said the third intervening. "The mission you requested asked for standard protection, which falls under their rank technically. Not to mention their sensei will be accompanying them. If you want a higher level group, we could always bump this mission higher up."

Pretty upset with the decision, but knowing he wouldn't be given another choice, the old man reluctantly agreed…and then proceeded to boss the group into hurrying so they can leave. 'I wonder what's going to be worse? This old loser or the cat?'

After an hour or two of gathering their belongings, the total of team 7 met at the village gates ready to go. "It's about time. Can we get going already? I've waited long enough."

"Man, what does he want protection from? Because if he keeps this up he's gonna need protection from me." Naruto told his also annoyed teammates. "Calm down. Tazuna is an important client. He's supposed to finish a bridge that will connect his village to the mainland. It's rather important that we succeed this mission. So at least take his abuse as best you can. Yelling at him won't make anything easier." Kakashi proceeded to lecture, not just Naruto, but the rest of his team. Then the group left the village and began their journey.

After a couple hours of walking along the road, Sakura was starting to get bored. "Man…this sucks more than I thought it would." She mumbled under her breath. She quickly learned that to be more careful for what she wished for. In a flash two cloaked ninja jumped from the bushes, wrapping their razor wires around Kakashi and then to rip him into shreds. "Sensei!" Sakura cried out. "Who are these guys?" Before she could even react, one of the masked men with a large metal craw for a hand charged toward both her and Tazuna. Naruto and Sasuke were busy fighting the other enemy, so Sakura knew it was up to her now. Pulling out some stars, she threw them at the target. This was to no avail as the metal claw merely blocked them. "Crap!" Sakura tried to pull out some kunai for defense, but the masked man was too fast for her. Sakura was backhanded by the metal hand and sent to the ground and took aim at Tazuna. "No!" Sakura yelled.

Sakura turned out to be the most relieved of the group when Kakashi appeared and defeated both ninja in almost no time. No one tried moving an inch until both men were tied to a tree. "Tazuna…might we have a word." Kakashi wasn't asking, he was ordering in a very serious tone. The two older men walked away until they were out of hearing distance.

"I wonder what that's all about…" Sakura muttered, still shaken up by the ordeal. She admitted to herself that she was scared. Who wouldn't on their first real encounter of enemies in a mission? But she was so mad at herself for being tossed aside like a rag-doll. "I swear you can be almost as dumb as Naruto." Sasuke said back, breaking Sakura's train of thought. "These ninja are of at least chunin rank. Individually we're no where near their league. This doesn't qualify as 'standard protection'." 'Great, there he goes being all smart again…I hate it!'

After a while of waiting for their teacher and the bridge-builder to get back, Kakashi asked the question Sakura knew was coming. "So, since no one received any serious injuries…" At that comment Sakura rubbed her hand on the bruise on her face she had received in the earlier fight. She was so upset with herself for being the only one to actually take a direct hit. "…I'll leave the decision up to you three on whether or not to continue this mission. At the point we are, it'd take almost just as long to return back than to continue."

Sakura knew what she wanted to do…but for some reason she was reluctant to say it. 'Of course we have to keep going…but…' A fear suddenly arose in Sakura's thoughts. 'If these are only the first guys…then…how strong might others be?' "Since we're this far, and as long as Kakashi-sensei is around we should be able to continue without too much worry." Sasuke coolly said. Then Naruto nodded in agreement with a grin on his face. "Besides, we can protect bruise-face if there's any trouble." That was it; Sakura just had to blow up on him. "What was that?!" Before a fight could start, Kakashi quickly motioned that they should move forward for a while and that it'd be dangerous to stay in the same spot.

Once it was time to call it a night and head to sleep, Sakura was finally left to her thoughts. Well, as many thoughts as she could have while pulling strands of hair from her headband. 'Naruto's right though…All I did was get hurt, and couldn't help at all. What am I doing out here?' She curled up into her sleeping bag to try and get as much sleep as she could.

The sun was slowly creeping above the landscape as dawn approached. Not wanting to wake up, Sakura turned around as to not let the sun bother her sleep. It only lasted a few minutes as she felt a tapping to her back. Sasuke then said, "Just get up already…we need to get going." Even though he was annoying, it was true though. While eating breakfast Sakura realized that the bruise had swollen slightly. It caused a slight speech impediment, that Naruto made fun of all day.

'Well…I suppose I'd do the same to him.' The constant annoyance of the teasing had put Sakura in a rather depressed mood. Today she just wanted to be left alone. She wasn't even listening to the others' conversation as she stared at her bruise in the water. The ride had taken seemingly forever, and she didn't want to look at her "failure mark" as she called it to herself. It was today Sakura vowed not to let herself get knocked around in a fight anymore.

Sakura was relieved when they finally got to shore. 'I hate being on water…' remembering she couldn't swim well. She quit the classes after almost drowning early on…it was just another vessel for the teasing she got for being afraid of water. She knew it was a dumb fear. 'It was just a liquid, what was there to be afraid of?' Even though she told herself this thousands of times, she still felt uncomfortable. After getting off the boat she realized that now the trip included more walking. 'When are we gonna get there already? It seems like forever since we've seen anything remotely close to a village.'

After another long trip of walking, Naruto was acting rather strange up ahead. 'What's that idiot up to now?' Once Naruto threw his kunai into the woods, Sakura immediately got on the defensive. She didn't want a repeat of the previous day. As it turned out, it was just a rabbit he had aimed at. 'Of course…he would mess this up…' Now not even focused, a huge blade swung above all their heads landing past them.

Where the blade had landed a large muscular man with his face mostly covered in bandage wrap again, don't really know what it's called and a Mist headband worn sideways. "So, there you are Tazuna." The large man spoke. "Oh and who's this? Another enemy to beat up?" 'Jeez Naruto…why won't you shut up for once?' "Quiet. You three stand back and protect the bridge-builder. This is Zabusa Momochi, demon of the mist. It's a fight none of you should take part of." "Well well, it seems you've heard of me Copy Ninja, I'm flattered. Of course I know of you as well. I've always wondered how your Sharingan works…"

'Sharingan? What the hell is that? I've never heard of it before…' Kakashi then pulled his headband up fully, revealing his red eye with three dots around the pupil. "Then I suppose I'm going to have to use this then." 'No….seriously…what is that? It's really creepy. Wait…this isn't the time to act confused.' Sakura then refocused at her defense, only then to find that a large mist had appeared around the area. 'Okay, now I'm really confused. Now it's hard to see…'

Once again in thought, it frightened Sakura to see Zabusa in front of all of them charging toward their defense. She was frozen still not knowing what to do. She was still half frozen in place as Kakashi's and Zabusa's water clones destroyed each other. Seeing her teacher holding a knife to the rouge ninja's neck snapped her out of it. A much relieved Sakura had a smile and thankful things had ended. 'Phew…that was close.'

"You shouldn't take me so lightly Kakashi. I wouldn't make it _that _easy would I?" Naruto and Sasuke where just as confused as Sakura was. Before she could even think about what that meant, she saw her sensei fly into the water only to reappear in a water prison. "The three of you, take Tazuna and run!" Kakashi yelled from the water sphere. When none of them moved from their spot, mostly shocked at what had happened, Kakashi continued to shout to them to run away. Sasuke then took at least some charge. "Sensei, even if we did get away. Do you think we could honestly fight this guy by ourselves later? We have to rescue you or else we'll all die anyway."

Sakura could sense a small amount of fear in his voice. She could only wish she could stay that calm in this situation. She couldn't even speak. "So, I guess the kids want to play now?" Sakura had to say something. She needed to shake some of her fright off. "Wait…what can you do from there? You can't come to us while holding Kakashi." 'Hey…I'm actually right! We may have a chance after all!' The newfound confidence was short lived however. "I'm glad you asked…" Zabusa smirked. It was then more water clone showed itself. 'Oh no…me and my big mouth!'

All she could do was stand there as Naruto and Sasuke charged at the clone. Both we're pushed back easily. Sakura was now more frightened then ever…'I…I can't just stand here. I said I wouldn't be useless again.' Forcing with all her might to move, Sakura grabbed five kunai from her bag and jumped in the air to try and attack above. The second she jumped she knew she'd made a mistake. Before she could even throw her weapons, the water clone was in the air near her. 'How could a clone be so fast?!' Sakura had a panicked look on her face as a leg smashed into her face and sent flying into the water.

She could feel her nose bleeding into the water. The kick was harder than she thought it was. Once her eyes were open to try and swim back, she found herself so disoriented she couldn't tell where the surface began and the water ended. Struggling to find any sense of direction, Sakura flailed around desperately trying to find something to grab onto. Even unable to feel any direction at all, she could sense her body sinking and air supply running out. Fearing death, she cried out a shout of help as loud as she could…only to have her remaining air escape in the form of bubbles. She hit the bottom of the water, with her eyes closing shut.

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Me: Hooray cliffhangers!

Readers: "Boo!" throws food and other junk

Me: Dang...


	4. Waking Up

Yes...I know what you're thinking...ANOTHER ONE!? Yes! I actually had this about halfway done when I finished it, and with the cable out and finally getting homework done, I felt like finishing this chapter. I probably won't get another one up for a while. I need to take a break from this for a while. It's hard to come up with this stuff. (major props to people who do this a lot.) I think this is my overall best written chapter. Probably not the most exciting though.

Oh and one more thing... PLEASE REVIEW! I want your opinions so I know how to make this better! Or else you'll get stuck with my rookie slop...

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Chapter 4: Waking up

In a small, bland bedroom, with only a window to look outside, Sakura lied on the small cotton bed, still unconscious. The fan was going on a moderate speed, not too fast, but giving the room fresher air, and giving off a slight creaking noise.

'What's that noise? I can't tell what it is. It's cold here…am I still underwater? No…I think I'm breathing…Then I'm alive?' Upon realizing that she was, in fact, alive, Sakura attempted to open her eyes. For such a simple function, Sakura found it hard to do. Once all the light came rushing in, her head began to pound. 'Ow…why does it hurt to see?' Sakura found all she could manage was to open her eyes about halfway. 'Good enough…at least I can see where I am.'

Looking around, she couldn't tell where she was. 'Wait…I'm inside now? Then…what happened back…' Remembering what had happened before she blacked out, Sakura tried to lift herself to find Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi. It was a sudden movement, sitting herself up in the bed; but fell right back down with her head in agony at the sudden change in viewpoint. It hurt a lot more than it did previously, and Sakura could barely stand it. This time, she slowly tried to get up.

Her body was incredibly weak. It took almost all the energy she had just to swing her legs to the side of the bed to sit up. 'What happened? I can barely breathe and I just sat up.' Sakura tried to take some deep breaths through her nose, she found that she couldn't. Much of her face had been bandaged up and it felt swollen. 'Oh yea…I forgot about that.' Pushing herself off the bed, she found the floor was freezing to her feet. 'Okay, I got my feet down. Now let's try standing and walking.'

Now she had to find some way to stand. There was a small dresser next to the bed, so Sakura figured to use that as a push off. It took all the power in her arms to push herself up. She was standing…even though half of her was using the desk for support. 'Now…let go. I have to stand on my own now.' Letting go of the top of the dresser, Sakura tried to find her balance, but to avail. She immediately fell back onto the bed, her head still throbbing. 'Now what?'

By pushing off from the dresser, and leaning against the wall with as much body weight as possible, Sakura found a way to walk. I suppose it could be considered walking…even though it had taken her ten minutes just to reach the door. 'Damn…I'm exhausted. I can feel my legs weakening. I guess all I can do is just use the last bit of power I have and push through the door and pray someone is out there.' Twisting the knob around, and preparing to leave the wall, the weakened kunoichi used the last of the strength in her legs to push open the door and fall through. She had no balance after leaving the wall, so Sakura quickly fell down to the hard floor onto her stomach, half of her inside the doorway, half out.

The sweat was starting to run down her face, stinging some of the cuts that hadn't healed yet. There was almost no feeling in her legs. They were so tired from just getting to the door. "H-h-h-e-e-l-p-p…an-n-ny-o-on-e?" Sakura's voice was barely louder than a whisper. After trying to call for help in her weakened state, her body shot painful coughs through her body. Speaking seemed to be almost out of the question. Her body had a hard enough time breathing as it was after nearly drowning to death.

The violent coughs continued until she found herself barely conscious and breathing heavily. 'Why…why is this so hard? Why can't I breathe? Or speak? Or even move? Why me?' The last of her thoughts brought small tears to her eyes. The pink bangs so constantly stuck in the headband began brushing against her eyelashes in a desperate attempt to stop the tears from falling. There wasn't anything Sakura could do, besides wait on the floor for someone to find her.

Even though it was only twenty minutes, it felt like years for Sakura. Every second a struggle to stay conscious. "Fine. I'll go check on her. It's been three days and she still hasn't woken up yet though." Came a male's voice. 'Th-Three days?! I've been out that long?! What the hell happened?!' Trying to focus her eyes at the top of the stairs to see who was coming, she saw Sasuke casually walk up. A look of surprise was caught on his face as the Uchiha caught sight of Sakura on the ground barely conscious. "Sakura! You're awake! Are you okay?" Sasuke questioned as he ran up to her side.

Sakura didn't move, and was having a hard time breathing. "S-s-s-s-a…" was all she could manage before another string of coughs struck her once again. These where even worse than the first ones. These hurt every inch of her body. As soon as the last cough left her mouth Sakura quickly passed out with her head in Sasuke's hands.

The next time she awoke, Sakura found herself on a couch, covered in blankets. Her body was shivering, but she didn't know why. 'It hurts…why does it hurt?' Opening her emerald eyes for a second time, she didn't see much. It was dark out now, and there wasn't much to see. However, Sakura could make out a dark figure on a chair next to her. Knowing talking was not an option, fearing another coughing attack, she made slight whimpers in her attempt at making noise. It wasn't much, but it worked. The figure moved around and turned on the lights.

With the lights turning on instantly, another shot of pain ran through her head. "Sakura? Are you up now?" came Naruto's voice this time. Even with her eyes only open a crack, Sakura could tell Naruto had a look of worry on his face. To confirm she was awake, she made more soft whimpers, but they were even weaker than before. "Guys! Get up! I think she's up now!" 'That idiot…that hurts my head. Why does he have to be so damn loud? This sucks, I can't even do anything about it.'

In only a matter of seconds Kakashi, Sasuke, Tazuna, and two people Sakura had never met before; a woman and a boy, rushed into the room. "Wow…you are up." Tazuna actually sounded concerned for once. "How are you feeling? Does anything hurt?" asked Sasuke. Having seen her before, he was more cautious in trying anything so not to send her back into her unconscious state. "Guys, everyone, back off. Give her some space." Kakashi said pulling everyone a couple of feet away. "She needs to breathe."

With everyone now around her, Sakura found the strength to open her eyes halfway again. Everyone looked worried and concerned. "Are you hurting at all?" questioned her sensei. She made a few more soft sounds and slightly shook her head no, despite the pain in her head. 'I don't want to worry them any further. It's hard enough to look at them like this.' "I suppose we should try to explain what had happened. I guess we'll start at the beginning…where you fell into the water."

So Kakashi and her teammates recalled on how they managed to escape. Apparently, Naruto was able to send one of his shadow clones down into the water to grab her. They said when she was finally pulled out, her face looked really beaten up, and she was coughing uncontrollably. Sakura found it difficult to concentrate on the later parts. It was difficult to take in what had happened up to that point. "Once we managed to get your face bandaged up and your breathing steady. We had to let you sleep until you woke up. You had been asleep for three days until the first time…which was about ten hours ago or so."

Quite honestly, Sakura didn't really care on how she got to Tazuna's house (or so she was assuming). She just wanted to know what was wrong with her. The questioning look in her eyes managed to get through to Kakashi, who was able to tell what she wanted. "As far as you're injuries go, there is both good and bad news." 'Of course it's bad news, I can't move…' "Good news first. You're face as a whole is only swollen. It should go down in a day or two." 'At least that wasn't as bad as I thought…I thought half my face was broken.' "Now the bad news. Between the blow to your head, and nearly drowning there is some brain damage. Luckily it isn't permanent. However, you won't be able to do much of anything for a while. I'm guessing from the fact that you can't really sit up or anything, I think it's a balance and coordination issue. I can start doing some exercises in the morning to stretch your body out some. Getting the blood flowing again should help a lot, and you might be able to move some."

"Well, it's just good that you're finally awake dear." Said the woman Sakura didn't know. The kid didn't even say anything at all, but Sakura didn't really care. She just felt how dry her throat was and how parched her lips where. Everyone was going to leave the room for the night. 'No…don't go…I'm so thirsty…' Before Sasuke was the last one out, Sakura managed to force out a few more sounds to get his attention. "What is it? Do you need something?" She licked her lips and tried to swallow to give him a clue, she couldn't speak after all. "Oh, you're thirsty." came a reassuring smile. 'heh, so the guy can actually smile.'

Once Sasuke had returned with a glass of water, he lifted her head up a bit so she wouldn't choke on it. "Nice and slow now. We don't want you to pass out again." The water felt so good to her mouth and body. She could feel herself getting even slightly better, even from just that. "Okay, now try and get some non injury related sleep." Sasuke was turning to leave when a soft "T-t-t-h-h-a-n-n-k-k-s…" came from behind him. "Don't worry about it." As he left Sasuke turned out the lights, and Sakura fell into a peaceful and welcomed sleep.

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Oh...and please REVIEW!


	5. Healing and Going Home

Hello all! Back with a short one right now. Oh, and I guess I need to clear a few things up on things I've been asked. As far as her hair goes, look at the flashback of Sakura meeting Ino, with her hair kinda long with bangs down to her eyes. Basically like that. Next, this isn't some "let's crush Sakura every fight" thing. You'll see what happens. Lastly, I obviously hate minor characters (like Inari...I loathe his annoyingness), so they'll get as little looks as possible...unless necessary. Oh...and REVIEW!!!

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Chapter 5: Healing and Going Home

A week had passed since Sakura finally woke up, and her rehabilitation was going well. She found the shock of the injury to be the worst part of it. After a few days of stretching exercises and regaining her strength through meals (Recovering from a horrible injury always makes people hungry), Sakura was up and about, beginning her chakra control training while Naruto and Sasuke where finishing. Her body still had some moments of extreme fatigue, but all things considered she felt great.

Chakra control seemed to come naturally to the kunoichi. She had easily figured out how to control and maintain chakra in her feet while running up trees. After only a day of training, her highest mark was nearly as high as Naruto's and Sasuke's during their entire week. After a few more runs Sakura's legs began to feel a little unbalanced, so she went into a clearing to take a break.

'Wow…this feels so nice.' as she lay under a warm sun with a light smile on her face. It was the best she had felt in seemingly forever. "Hey, you okay?" came a voice coming towards her. "Oh, hey Sasuke, and yea I'm fine. For once I'm not angry to see you." She smirked at her approaching teammate. "I see you caught up rather fast. You seem to be good at this." Sakura's high only continued to soar. "Is that what I think it is? Sasuke admitting someone's better than him at something? I need to remember this for further use." Shooting another grin. Sasuke was going to comment on her fighting abilities, but found it'd be rude and in bad taste, considering what had happened. It could wait until they got back to the Leaf Village.

After a few minutes of resting, Sakura's face seemed to turn serious again. "So…that Zabusa guy is gone now right? I mean, I heard that Gatou guy hiring him is gone…"

"Yea, he's dead. Killed in the first fight." Sasuke bluntly commented. "How did Kakashi do it? How'd he get out of that prison? If he could've broken out why didn't he just do it in the first place?" 'Wow, sensei is amazing. I didn't realize he was so capable.' "It wasn't him, it was Naruto." Sakura immediately turned to face him with a very confused look. "No way…you mean he beat a jounin like that? You can't be serious…"

"No, I'm being completely serious." The Uchiha turned back. "After you were back up to the surface in the condition you were in, Naruto got really pissed at Zabusa. He kept saying how that if you died that he'd kill him." Sakura was completely flabbergasted. Being told about Naruto's visible orange chakra, red eyes, and insane power left her more confused that she was before. "Then, what was that Naruto was doing? I still don't get it." "I don't know either. Naruto himself doesn't seem to remember it well." Turning serious again, Sakura turned back to her thoughts. 'I guess there was more to him than I thought. If Naruto is that strong, and Sasuke that skilled, what do I have?' With no conversation going on, Sasuke returned to his training, with Naruto still overexerting himself and making a huge ruckus.

Sakura continued to sit there, thinking of ways she could actually be helpful in a fight. 'The only thing so far is chakra control. I have to find some way to use that to my advantage in a battle…but how? Great chakra control only works for ninjutsu, I haven't learned many of those. How can I fight with that?' Then an idea struck her. She didn't know if it was actually possible, so she got up to go ask her sensei about her idea.

Kakashi ended up being at the construction site, supervising the final bits of the bridge. He doubted anything would happen, with Gatou and his thugs gone, but it didn't hurt to be safe. "Well, I know it's certainly possible…but I haven't seen many people actually be able to use their chakra like that. If you don't have precise control in what you're doing, you could seriously hurt yourself. Even I have a difficult time trying it." Kakashi replied after hearing out Sakura's idea. "So…do you think I should try it? I think it's my only option in a fight, seeing as there's no way I can keep up with Naruto and Sasuke in terms of actual fighting ability." Sakura was getting depressed on herself. 'If sensei can't do it…how am I supposed to? I don't want to be dead weight anymore.' "I recommend giving it a try. You certainly have talent in control, but talent alone won't get you anywhere. You'll have to train harder than you ever have to actually be able to pull this off consistently." Hearing her teacher's words of encouragement, Sakura began to look hopeful again. "Then I'll do it. No doubt. I want to actually be useful. If that way will make it so, then I will make it."

Much to her dismay, Sakura was forbidden to attempt her idea even once while in the land of waves. Kakashi only allowed it once they returned home. 'Only another reason I want to leave now…' Soon the bridge was finally done, and Team 7 began the journey home after a "kick ass way to finish a real mission!" as Naruto liked to put it. The trip home was uneventful, much to Sakura's delight. 'I've had enough action for one trip…' Once the village gates came into view, Sakura ran at full speed to the massive doors. Looking at them with an expression that she hadn't seen something dear to her in a long time, she only confused her teammates. Realizing she was getting some strange looks from her teammates, Sakura's face quickly turned slightly red at her embarrassment. "Hey sensei…you sure her heads fixed? I don't think the headband is keeping everything in there…" Naruto said half joking half confused. It took her a few seconds to realize it was another knock at her forehead. 'Don't worry about it…I'm in too good a mood to let that bother me.'

Sakura was still walking with her thoughts until something big and round came in front of her face. "Hello in there! Is forehead home? She just passed the street she lives on." Naruto continued to mock. More surprised than anything, Sakura proceeded to give her pest a punch to the face as Naruto was sent flying. "What do you think you're doing talking to me like that!?" "Yep…she's back…" Naruto managed to sputter out with is face in the dirt. Looking around at where she was, Sakura really did miss her turn. She turned back and rushed to her home to a soft bed she had long missed.


	6. Training

Here's a quick one up. Trust me, it gets less doom and gloom for a while. Also, I bet you didn't see this coming from Sakura so soon! You'll hve to read and find out. And the standard: PLEASE REVIEW! note.

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Chapter 6: Training

With a job well done on what turned out to be a very high ranking mission, Team 7 as a whole was given a few days off from missions and training. However, this isn't what Sakura wanted. She wanted to get back to work right away, especially after not being allowed to at the end of their last mission. 'Wait…just because we don't _have_ to, doesn't we can't…' A big grin appeared across Sakura's face after finishing breakfast. 'Thank you loophole!'

After getting herself ready, Sakura left to go find her teacher. This task turned out to be harder than she thought. None of them knew anything decent about Kakashi outside of ninja aspects. She had no idea where he hung out, what he did, or how to contact him if necessary. It took until lunchtime before Sakura finally spotted her sensei reading his book on top of a nearby building. "Hey! Kakashi-sensei! Get down here! I need to talk to you!" Finally acknowledging someone had called him, Kakashi looked down to the street to see his pink haired student. "I dunno Sakura, I kind of like reading this book and these older legs of mine aren't as good as they once were…" Kakashi replied making a very lame excuse. He wasn't anywhere near being considered 'old'. Sakura regained her usual grimace and started going to the top of the building.

Kakashi finally finished the last page as he heard a metal door slam open to the roof. "Oh, you decided to come up then?" He was only met with a really annoyed stare at a panting Sakura after climbing so many stairs. "If only you didn't have to be so damn lazy…" Sakura stated walking over to her teacher. "Did you come here to complain or was it something else? If it's the former I have more annoying people I could listen to." 'Man he's annoying…why's he always like this when we're not on missions?' "Well, even though we have the day off…" Sakura began. "…can you start training me now? I don't think I can wait any longer. I want to get stronger now!"

Looking down at the hopeful girl Kakashi told her practically the opposite of what she wanted to hear. "I can't really do anything about that." Dumbstruck, all Sakura could reply was, "What!?" Realizing his explanation had to be good, he continued. "I mean that me teaching you wouldn't help. I already told you that most people, including me, have either a hard time or can't do it at all. It's just something you'll have to gain a feel for on your own." Looking back down he could see his previously hopeful student turning into an anger filled face… "And you couldn't have told me this before!?" "It didn't matter up to this point. Just be careful not to hurt yourself too badly." Kakashi appeared to smile and disappeared in a puff of smoke. 'I really hate him...' Sakura grumbled.

After wasting half a day already, Sakura hurried of to Team 7's common training ground to begin practicing. Unfortunately, she had no idea what to do. 'He could have at least given me a hint.' Getting angry wouldn't help, so Sakura quickly changed her focus back to her training. 'I guess I should start with…' Sakura began focusing her chakra into her hands and feet. 'Okay…here goes nothing'. Jumping off to her intended target, Sakura realized she focused more than she thought she needed and overshot her target into a tree. 'Damn…this is going to be harder than I thought. We'll try legs later…what's the point if I can't attack while moving?'

On the other side of the field there was a boulder large enough for Sakura's needs. Now Sakura focused her chakra again into her limbs again, and threw the hardest punch she had into the boulder. Her fist stopped where the boulder began. 'Not enough…' Sakura thought with a very painful expression on her face. "Ow ow ow ow ow! Damn this hurts!" She screamed jumping around trying to shake off the pain in her hand. Looking at a rather large bruise on her knuckles Sakura grimaced, "I think I broke something…" she moaned.

After being praised for her chakra control by her teacher and teammates, Sakura thought her training would be a piece of cake. It turned out controlling chakra, and actually using chakra in the right amounts at precise times, was quite different. After an entire afternoon of practice, she didn't find any ways to get her desired result. Instead she found hundreds of ways to injure herself. Falling to her back on some soft grass and looking at a setting sun, Sakura relaxed for the first time this afternoon…or as much as her body allowed her. 'My body feels like one big bruise.' She thought feeling her muscles screaming for some sleep and her stomach growling for dinner. "Oh shut up…I would go home but…I can't get up…" Sakura half whined half moaned to herself.

Sakura slept the entire next day away, still exhausted from before. After finally forcing her body to move the following day, she went back to the training ground to continue practicing. Improvement was slower than before, as her body practically refused to keep up. It wasn't until mid-afternoon did Sakura finally destroy a boulder with practically no recoil jostling back into her arm. "I think that was it…" Sakura said staring at her arm with slight amazement. "All right! Finally!" Sakura's body felt more invigorated after this one success. After a few extra hit and misses along the way, Sakura felt as if she could use her arms consistently. After what felt like another pulled muscle, Sakura headed home hoping to end the day on a high note.

A whole week passed of Sakura's individual training. She often wondered what Kakashi was teaching Naruto and Sasuke now and vice versa for her teammates. 'Heh, they're gonna be so angry when I show them this later.' Sakura thought quite confidently. Today was the last day before Kakashi was going to announce their next mission, and she couldn't wait. The last training day turned out to be similar to the previous days once Sakura knew precisely how to control her chakra in the right amounts for the situation…until her last practice run. The lesson of concentration was one Sakura hadn't intended to learn at this point. On the last target Sakura was on a confidence high. Thinking about how jealous her team would be, she put all her remaining chakra into the last punch. The boulder exploded as planned, but the ground around her did as well. "Ooops…" Sakura mentioned as she escaped from the exploding rubble. After about halfway home the tired legs gave out. Sakura fell to her knees thinking, 'How much did I use that last time?…I can't remember…ugh this sucks…'

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Oh, and if you're confused, her attacks are basically what she does in the Shippuden series. Punches and kicks that use chakra to make her super strong and such.


	7. The Chunnin Exams Begin

Yep, back again. This time with two relatively short ones. I wanted to get to this one part I really wanted to, so I might have rushed these two a bit. I might come back and make them better after I get that one part done. REVIEW!

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Chapter 7: Chunnin Exams Begin!

The big red numbers on an alarm clock sat at 5:59 A.M. A small, curled up lump in a bed lay undisturbed with sounds of light snoring breaking through the thick sheets. Sakura eventually made it home, and went straight to bed to regain her lost strength. The numbers flipped to the next hour of 6:00 A.M. and began its duty to buzz until the target awoke. A few seconds passed before a still exhausted Sakura whined from her bed and let out an annoyed, "Why?" Turning the clock into its off position, the tired girl forced herself out of bed, and walked downstairs to get some breakfast. Well, most of her went downstairs. Sakura still held her pillow laying her head on it…almost as if sleepwalking down.

Sakura turned out to be the last of the three students to the standard meeting place at the bridge. Both boys where sitting down against the railing, not really noticing she had arrived. "Why are you guys sitting…?" Sakura motioned half asleep. Sasuke didn't say anything, but once Naruto began talking, she wished she hadn't asked. "Why do you think? It's not like he's gonna show on time. He's always late! It's so annoying! You'd think…" Sakura tuned the rest of her annoying teammate's rant as she sat down between the two. It wasn't even seven in the morning yet, and Sakura quickly fell back asleep.

"Hey Sakura…what're ya lookin at?" asked a curious Naruto a few hours later. Sakura was still asleep, with her head facing down toward the ground. "Hey forehead? Ya listening?" Naruto said getting annoyed. "Moron…she's asleep. Are you so stupid you can't even tell that much?" Sasuke said without even turning to see what was happening. "How can she sleep sitting on the ground like this anyway?" Naruto gained no reply from his silent teammates.

Sakura shuffled in her sleep shortly after. Leaning against a railing while sitting wasn't the best way to sleep. Her body weight shifted to the right and her body slid down until her head rested on Naruto's shoulder. The young blonde jerked nervously after finding it was Sakura who landed on him. His sudden movement caused the sleeping girl to grab onto his arm to keep her new pillow from moving. Sasuke snickered at Naruto's feeble attempts to detach Sakura from his arm. It remained that way for a few minutes until Kakashi arrived with his usual excuses. "Sensei!" Naruto whined, "Get forehead off! She won't let go!" After seeing Kakashi rather amused by the sight Naruto complained even more. It wasn't until Sasuke splashed some water from his canteen onto Sakura's face that she woke up.

The previously sleeping Sakura awoke with a startled expression. "Huh…? What happened? Hey why am I wet?" "No important reason…just to get you up." A still amused Kakashi retorted. Sakura was busy wiping the water from her face while Naruto began to practically beg for the mission briefing to start. "I hope it's another tough mission with other ninja to fight!" "Actually Naruto, this isn't exactly a 'mission'. It's more like the chunnin exams in one week. I've recommended all of you to take it." As he finished his brief explanation, Kakashi pulled out three registration forms and handed them to his students.

"What're the…chunnin exams?" Naruto asked confused as ever. "Man you're stupid" Sakura chimed in. "It's the test that lets genin like us move up a rank! We won't get stuck with any lame missions, and actually get to lead some." "You mean, it's like a promotion then? Yes! One step closer to bein Hokage!" 'Ugh…he's still going on about that? No way in hell is he gonna get to that point. But still, the chunnin exams….we're so gonna pass!"

"Of course, I'm not forcing you to enter. You all have a choice in the matter." Their sensei chimed in between the chatter. "What are you freakin stupid?!" Sakura excitedly remarked. "We're so taking this!" "Yea! No way am I backing down!" A just as excited Naruto exclaimed. "We've come this far…" Sasuke seemed to mention to no one in particular. "Good, then I suggest you go fill those out and prepare."

The rest of the week was filled with more D-rank "chore" missions, as Sakura called them. Whenever they where not on a mission, she ditched the two boys to continue practicing. Realizing the best of all the ninja villages would be there, Sakura was worried that her skills weren't polished enough. She trained even harder than before, but reminded herself to rest the last day before. 'Don't want a repeat of the bridge…' Finally the day arrived to the start of the exams.

All three Team 7 members were excited and yet nervous at the same time…well, except for Naruto, who was just plain excited. The first thing they had to do was submit their applications. They were told to go to the third floor office to submit them. Once they found the room marked 3-1 (sorry, can't remember exactly what it was), Sakura found they weren't the only group there. Quite a few teams had already arrived, and where trying to get in through the students blocking the door. Both guards were mocking everyone about how if they couldn't even get in that there was no way they could be chunnin.

"Hey…calling all morons!" Sakura shouted over all the commotion. That caused everyone to turn towards her, some rather angry at the insult. "Did none of you notice where only on the second floor? This is just some dumb genjutsu! Come on Naruto, Sasuke. Let's go register already." All the students looked rather confused until the three on the door changed to a two. After being the only one to notice the trick, Sakura thought quite highly of herself. 'And they're supposed to be candidates? This is going to be a walk in the park…'

After handing over their applications, the three of them entered the room where all the testee's where waiting. The first thing Sakura noticed was how many people there were. 'No way…this many people are taking it? This is…a little more than I thought.' However, she still was able to keep her cool in front of so many enemy students. Looking back over to her teammates, Sakura found Ino smothered all over Sasuke trying to get some attention, but Sasuke was only annoyed with her very presence. He was never one to actually get close to people. 'Serves the bitch right…'

"So…it seems all the rookies are here. I'm surprised they let a lousy group like yours in." remarked a rather furry guy with a dog hanging in his jacket. 'Oh great, dog boy…and everyone else from class. I'm outta here.' Sakura rolled her eyes as she made her way to the window. Staring out the window always made Sakura calmer. It let her mind wander and force anything bothering her out for a while. That was until a certain loudmouth rang out.

"Oh yea? Well I ain't afraid of ya! My name's Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm gonna crush every last on of ya!" Sakura was more surprised than anything. "Dumbass! What're you trying to do get us killed?!" She was busy scolding Naruto for his idiocy until she heard some commotion on the other side of the room. Some sound-nin attacked another Konoha genin. Luckily the attack made no contact. 'Yea they're fast…but nothing we can't keep up with.' She sounded confident to herself until the boy's glasses broke and he began to throw up onto the ground. 'Huh? What was that? I know he missed.' Sakura saw she was just as confused as everyone else. That was until a large man with a scarred face and a big black overcoat (I think that's what it is) appeared in the center of the room.

"Alright, everyone shut up! My name's Morino Ibiki, and what I say goes! First off, no one, under any circumstance is allowed to attack each other until we say so! Anyone not willing to follow that will be immediately failed. Now, let's start the written portion of this exam."

'Wait…it's a written test!? Score!' Sakura was the first to boast about her test taking abilities in the academy. It seemed to be the only thing she was good at during her days there, despite all her forehead "issues". 'I'm practically a chunnin already…' She thought to herself as all the examinees entered the next room.


	8. The Written Test and the Forest of Death

Number 2 this update. Again, I feel as if I rushed this. I did have fun stressing Sakura out though...if you don't get it you'll see. Next update should be really long and good. I might have it done tomorrow (I've already started...kinda), but don't hold me to it. (place review message here)

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Chapter 8: The Written Test and the Forest of Death

Sakura took her seat in the number she drew for the positions. Naruto was a few rows in front of her, and Sasuke was on the other side of the room. She could tell already Naruto was freaking out. Written test…or any test for that matter wasn't his strong suit. After everyone had taken their seats, the rules of the test where explained. Everything so far seemed to be like a normal, standard test. Point reduction, something about cheating, last question later, so on and so forth. That was until…

"If one member of a team gets a zero, the whole team fails." Announced the proctor. "What!? Wait…how is that fair?" Sakura turned out to be the only person brave enough to even ask that…especially after being told no questions would be answered. "Unless you want to fail now young lady, you'll take your seat and quit your whining." The scarred man said giving the whole class a creepy glare.

The test was at last handed out to the participants. Sakura quickly looked over the test to see the difficulty. The last thing she wanted was to fail for because of her teammates being stupid. 'Crap…this isn't good. These are some hard questions…nothing I can't handle. But…I hate how this is a team based test. Sasuke is smart enough to answer a few of these. At least I would hope so…but Naruto's a whole other situation. He's got no chance! I've got to get all these right to have a chance. Come on Naruto, get one right!'

The test itself turned out to be as hard as Sakura had feared. It was tough…even she could barely figure them out. 'Where so screwed!' Sakura yelled to herself. Half an hour had passed, leaving only half of the allotted time left. She was only half done. Sakura looked down at her teammates hoping to see at least something convincing. Sasuke was scribbling on his paper. Of course at that distance Sakura couldn't tell what, but at least it was a good sign. 'Okay…at least he knows what to do…' Now came the teammate she almost dared not to look down at, but of course, she did. Naruto's paper was completely blank. Not one question had been answered. 'Shit shit shit shit shit! Dumbass! Answer one! Think! Cheat! Do something!'

After a few seconds of inner panic, Sakura felt some force push against her back. Then her whole body felt numb for a few moments, and then returned to normal. 'Huh? What the hell was that? Not now Sakura focus!' She pushed herself not to worry about anyone other than Naruto. Almost forty-five minutes had passed, and the last question was going to be handed out soon. Sakura had just completed the first nine questions of her test, and was praying the last one was something Naruto could answer.

It was at last time for the tenth and final question to be handed out. 'Please be something easy.' Sakura worried. The test proctor returned to the front of the room to talk about the last question. "Now, before I hand out the last question, you have an important choice to make. You can choose whether to take this or not. If you don't, you fail immediately and can try again next time. If you do take the question and get it wrong…your whole team will fail and can never take the Chunnin exams again." He said finishing with an almost evil grin. Sakura's face read as if she were about to have a heart attack. 'I…I have to quit. Naruto can't get this…we'll all be stuck as gennin forever…'

"If anyone wants to quit now and try again next time, simply raise your hand and leave now." Ibiki demanded. Looking down Sakura saw Naruto begin to raise his hand. 'Thank god…at least he knows his limits…' Even though her team failed, it's better than being banned. She let out a sigh of relief, but heard the last thing she expected to hear. A loud bang came from a few rows down. 'Huh?' Naruto had slammed his palm on the face of the desk. "Bring it on! I'm ready for your stupid question! No piece of paper is going to stop me!" Naruto confidently shouted. 'Shit! What the crap are you doing dumbass!?' Her face returned to her complete panic look from a few moments ago.

"Well then…everyone passes." The intimidating man slyly announced. "Huh?" practically everyone in the room said. Sakura had a dumbfounded and dazed expression. "You see, there was no tenth question. The point of the pass/fail question was to see who confident you were about yourselves. If you are to be chunnin you must have to make difficult choices constantly, but require confidence in your decision, or it will fail regardless." Everyone in the room had a look of extreme relief and happiness on them…except for Sakura. Her face was completely dazed and starring of into space. It seemed as if the shock of the last few minutes finally caught up to her. She didn't even notice the window crashing open, nor the next test proctor announcing the next phase of the exam.

It wasn't until Naruto and Sasuke had to go fetch Sakura did she finally move. "What happened?" she asked still rather dazed at the whole experience. "We passed stupid…let's go." Sasuke said with a rather neutral voice. "No…seriously…what happened?" Sakura asked again as dazed as before. "Let me handle this…this'll get her to move for sure." Naruto confidently told his brooding teammate. "Forehead let's go! If we don't get going all the air's gonna rush into that huge forehead of yours!" "What'd you say dead last!?" Sakura yelled grabbing Naruto's jacket by the neck. "Told ya." Naruto still grinning said to Sasuke already leaving. "Whatever, let's just go already."

As it turned out, the next phase didn't begin until the next day, much to Sakura's relief. She wanted a day to clear out her head after one of the most brutal hours of her life. The whole rest of the day, and night, was spent lying in bed trying to sleep. However, the nervousness returned to Sakura after a while. In a desperate move to get to sleep, Sakura knocked herself out with a hard punch to the head. She knew it was necessary for some kind of sleep…even if it came to that.

The next day came faster than Sakura thought it would. Her mind was filled with nothing but worry about what this "forest of death" was. After finally reaching her destination, Sakura met with her two teammates with the rest of the remaining teams. After about an hour or so of waiting, their new test proctor, Anko, arrived. The first thing that was given out were consent forms. "Um…excuse me…" Sakura timidly asked, "…but why do we need consent forms for this?" Anko turned back, almost hoping that question would be asked. "Well, some of you might die in this test…and we don't want to be liable for that."

'Crap…why did I know it'd be something so serious like that. I don't wanna die…but I can't let Naruto and Sasuke down.' Sakura forced her hand to fill out the form and made her legs deliver it to the stand. 'Okay…no turning back now.' Sakura silently worried.

"Alright, I'll explain the rules now." Anko announced over the crowd of students. "This is the Forest of Death. And it's called that for a reason. The depths of this area consist of a massive forest, with a river and a large tower in the center. Not to mention filled with vicious animals and many poisonous plants." 'Well, this is certainly starting of well…hehehe.' Sakura continued to show nervousness. "The point of the test are these…" Finishing by holding out a yellow scroll marked "Heaven" and a blue scroll marked "Earth". "Each team will be given one of these two scrolls. The task is to obtain both scrolls, by any means necessary, and make your way to the tower in the center. Also, a time limit of five days has been set. Oh, and whatever you do, don't peak inside until the test is over."

"Um…what does she mean by 'any means necessary'?" Sakura nervously whispered to Sasuke. "It means we may end up having to kill someone to get the scroll to pass the test." Sakura gulped at the thought of killing someone. "Thought so…" Sakura turned back to her gloomy mood. Then the teams were asked to come up to receive their scrolls…one at a time, as to not to reveal who had what scroll and to head to their starting gate.

Every second waiting at the gate for the exam to start felt almost unbearable to Sakura. 'Come on…let's just go already." She tried to calm herself knowing she trained so hard for this exact purpose. 'I'm not the weak little girl from before… I won't be a failure.' After finally calming herself down, the yellow heaven scroll caught her eye. It was so small overall. 'What could possibly be inside it that's so important?' Before Sakura had time to contemplate what was inside the mysterious paper, the gate flew open and the second phase of the chunnin exam began.


	9. Desperation

Okay...here it is! I worked long and hard trying to figure out how this would work nicely. I think I managed to do a good job on this, espeically since I spent so long on this. This is going to be the turning point in the story itself, so I hope I made this chapter clear enough for you. Enjoy and... REVIEW!

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Chapter 9: Desperation

The Forest of Death turned out to be as creepy as Sakura thought it was. Dark, damp, and everything looking strange from her point of view. No matter how much Sakura tried to calm herself down, she could never get rid of the feeling that this part of the exam would be the end of them. "Hey guys, hold on a sec. Nature calls." Naruto said walking over to a bush and unzipping his pants. "What the hell're you doing idiot!? Not in front of me! Go behind a bush or something." Sakura rather embarrassed said. The sight of Naruto's more private body parts only made Sakura's mind worse than it had previously been. "Phew, that was a lot!" Naruto laughed coming back from his "business".

'Finally…' Sakura thought, looking up from the spot on the ground she had focused on. Hearing some kind of noise, she turned to see Sasuke attacking Naruto. "Sasuke! What are you doing!?" Sakura screamed running over to the two fighting boys. "This isn't Naruto, you blind?" Sasuke yelled back. "What the hell's your problem Sasuke?! It's me!" Naruto shouted back. "Sasuke stop…you're scaring me…" Sakura said much softer than before. "Take a good look Sakura. Naruto is right handed. So what's his kunai pouch doing on his left leg? And why is he grabbing them with his left hand?" Sakura only gasped at this realization. "Hn…keen eye there." Naruto sputtered back.

Suddenly the would be Naruto transformed into a skinnier, clad in black rain-nin. "What'd you do with Naruto?" Sasuke demanded. "I don't think I can talk about that." "Then I'll just have to beat it out of you!" Sasuke yelled charging toward their new enemy. "Sakura, you go look for Naruto!" he shouted back. Snapping back into focus, Sakura ran off searching for her third teammate. It took a few minutes, but she finally found the blonde tied up away from where they previously were. After untying him, both of them ran back to where they were last all together. They found Sasuke there, still slightly angry at the whole situation.

"Gah! What happened to that creep! I'm gonna crush him!" Naruto angrily shouted. "It doesn't matter at this point. I already stabbed him and he fled." This only seemed to make Naruto angrier. "Please, calm down. Getting angry won't do anything." Sakura tried calming him down. "Anyway…" the Uchiha interrupted, "…the enemy managed to get past our defense way too easily. We need some kind of password so we don't get fooled again." Looking rather annoyed that he actually has to remember something now, Naruto asked, "Well, what should it be then Mr. I think of everything." Ignoring that last comment, an idea came to Sasuke.

"It has to be something no one would really expect as one…how about the old song 'Ninki'?" Sasuke suggested. (Note: I'm taking the saying from a summary site, so it's probably wrong, but it doesn't matter if it's exactly right or not.) "Um…how'd that go again?" Naruto asked, confused as to what the whole idea was. "You mean you've never heard of it?" Sakura said, "Well, it goes like this. It is a good chance when a large number of enemies are making a scene. There are no hideouts even in a quiet place. It is important for a ninja to know the right time. The time when an enemy is tired, and lets his guard down." Sakura finished this matter of factly, glad she was able to contribute something to the group. "So, everyone got it?" Sasuke asked. "Um…sure…yea…." Naruto replied, still rather confused as to what was actually said.

Before they could even move onward to a different spot, a powerful wind scorched passed everyone, knocking them all in different directions. Breathing heavily, Sakura wondered what had just happened. "Sasuke!' she called finding her still level headed teammate. "Don't come near me!" came Sasuke's reply. "Sasuke…what's wrong? Are you hurt?" Sakura asked confused as to what was going on. "What's the ninja song Ninki?" Sasuke asked, still suspicious. "Oh, yea, password. It is a good chance when a large number of enemies are making a scene. There are no hideouts even in a quiet place. It is important for a ninja to know the right time. The time when an enemy is tired, and lets his guard down." "Good." Sasuke said letting his guard down after hearing the password. "Wow, I guess this works…" Sakura said to herself. "That would have been really bad if we had the same problem again."

After a few moments of resting, Naruto emerged from some bushes relieved to have found his teammates. "Wow I'm glad I found you guys. What do you think that was earlier?" Sasuke then gave him the same look he gave Sakura. 'Oh, now I get it. We can't trust anyone here…' Sakura thought as Naruto recited the whole password perfectly. "Okay, now what do we do?" Sakura asked as Sasuke only threw some knives at Naruto. He narrowly avoided getting cut to bits by them. "What the hell Sasuke!? He said the entire password!" Sakura screamed, not knowing what the serious teammate was thinking. "Exactly…the real Naruto can't remember anything longer than a couple words, let alone a whole paragraph of a song." Sakura was just as shocked as the first time. "Damn it Sasuke quit confusing me!" She shouted, saddened that her teammate refused to trust her.

"Very good young man…" came a creepy, almost sadistic female sounding voice as the fake Naruto turned into a grass-nin, with a plain almost full length outfit, and a pale slender face. "Who are you and what did you do with Naruto?" Sakura almost pleading with the imposter. It had only been an hour and already she was on the brink of falling apart emotionally. "Well, that doesn't matter right now does it? I think this is what you were looking for?" replied the still creepy imposter, holding up an earth scroll. "And it seems it'll take quite a bit to get it off of me." The scroll was now being swallowed by the grass-nin. This act alone grossed out both remaining Team 7 members. "Shall we begin then?" The eyes of the enemy now changed into snake eyes, and a dark force befell the two.

In an instant, Sakura was on the ground, huddled together crying her eyes out. Her hands clutched to her head in a state of panic. Her body refused to move from that spot. 'I…I…I just died!' Sakura screamed at her paniced self. She had seen her own death. Her arms were getting ripped off and the rest of her being impaled by dozens of kunai, her blood pouring out of her. 'I'm…I…alive?' Sakura asked herself still in a state of complete shock. She was scared out of her mind. She had lost all sense of what was going on around her until she felt Sasuke carrying her away from the snake person's attack.

After a few minutes of shaking and hyperventilating on what she had seen, Sakura finally managed to choke out some words. "What was that…Sasuke?" Her words were almost inaudible, barely a whisper. "I don't know. Whatever it was we have to get out of here."

As soon as he said that, their hunter had appeared before them. "Clever trick young man, but I see you're still frozen with fear." Her body still wouldn't respond. It was true, Sakura was so scared she wouldn't move. Forcing her eyes to look over, she could see the same effect was affecting Sasuke. Sakura had lost any hope she had left…until a familiar voice shouted.

"Hey! You! How dare you try to get me eaten back there, and attacking my friends!" "So, you survived?" Sakura just sat there amazed at what had just happened. 'Naruto! He's here! Thank god!" But the next voice was also something she never thought she'd here. "Here! This is what you want right?" Sasuke was holding their heaven scroll outward. "Just take it and leave us alone!" Sasuke yelled throwing their scroll to the enemy nin. Sakura was so confused. Naruto reclaimed the scroll in mid-air, much to the frustration of Sasuke. As the two continued to argue, all Sakura was left to were her thoughts. 'What's going on? What's going on!?' Heading into another panic attack, Sakura shut her eyes with all her might trying to block out everything around her.

That worked until she heard Naruto screaming. Sakura's eyes flashed open, trying to see what happened. She saw Naruto being thrown aside by the enemy, and about to fall to the ground. She managed to force herself to move, and throw a kunai to attach the now unconscious Naruto to a side of a tree. Sakura had to see that Sasuke was okay. 'He just has to be…' Sasuke wasn't hurt, but he wasn't fighting either, merely standing there as their heaven scroll was being burnt away by their frightening enemy. "Sasuke…" Sakura managed to whisper… "Do something!" she yelled at the top of her voice. Apparently something struck inside the Uchiha, as he began fighting to save his teammates.

Sakura's hopeful mood quickly faded… 'Wait…this isn't what I wanted…I wanted to help, not be a burden anymore. I'm…just being a weak little girl who needs saving again. I'm so…so…hopeless!' she inwardly spat at herself. Breaking from her thoughts, she saw Sasuke returning from where they had been fighting. Only…the enemy was different. Half of the face was pealed off, and the grass headband was now a sound headband. "Oh yes, I'm quite pleased indeed. You might have even more potential then that brother of yours." Hissed the now male, snakelike voice. "Unfortunately, my time here is about up."

"Wait! Get back here!" shouted Sasuke. "Well, if you wish to see me again then Sasuke, survive this test. Three of my minions will be after you the rest of the way. Do watch out for them; after all, their target is you. But before I go, a parting gift." Sakura thought swallowing the scroll was gross enough, but this was insane. An extended neck stretched all the way across the gaps between the giant tree branches, and ensued to give a vicious bite to Sasuke's neck. As soon as the demented head released him, Sasuke fell to his knees writhing in pain. "Sasuke!" shouted Sakura rushing to her injured teammate.

Once she reached her fallen comrade, Sakura grabbed him close in her arms, trying to comfort him. "Sasuke, hang on! It'll be okay! Please just hang on!" Only Sasuke continued to yell in agony, finally falling unconscious in her arms. Apparently, the sound-nin left some time ago. Looking down at the boy in her arms, and then to the still hanging Naruto, Sakura felt completely isolated. "What am I supposed to do know?" Sakura whispered to herself.

After a while of searching, and carrying both boys a long way, Sakura finally found a spot under large tree roots to hide and rest. She gently laid the unconscious Naruto and Sasuke next to each other, and then proceeded to wet two towels and put them on each of their foreheads. 'Okay…it's up to me…stay calm…stay…calm…' Sakura had to talk to herself to calm down concerning the situation. 'I have to protect them. They fought with their lives to protect me…again.' Sakura sighed at the thought of her being a burden once again. 'What was all that training for? All that hard work…for nothing. Please…let me do something right and protect them…please.' Sakura silently prayed to herself as nightfall began to approach.

The night seemed to take forever. The exhausted girl forced herself to stay up almost the entire night to be on guard. She unwillingly fell asleep for a few hours, but was relieved to see nothing had happened during her slumber. Sakura still continued to take care of her fallen teammates as best she could.

After a short while in the morning, Sakura began to feel as if someone was watching her. She told herself it was nothing, but couldn't shake the feeling. Her instincts proved correct, as the three sound nin Orochimaru warned them about appeared before them. "Who…who are you? And what do you want? I don't have a scroll…please go." The slightly frightened girl said to the group. "That doesn't matter." said the shorter male with spiky hair. "Just wake that Sasuke guy up now. We came to fight him." Sakura, determined not to let them near her teammates, spat back, "He can't, that Orochimaru guy bit him and now he's hurt."

"Is that what he did now?" questioned the masked member. "So…he wanted us to fight someone he gave the mark to. That really pisses me off Zaku." "No doubt." Returning the masked man's anger. "Was he just using us? Forget what he said, I wanna kill this Sasuke guy now." Sakura knew what she needed to do. She wasn't going to talk her way out of making them leave. Standing up and putting a serious look on her face, Sakura angrily shot back, "I…won't…let…you." The nin named Zaku seemed to chuckle a bit. "Oh look she's angry. And what do you think you're going to do?" Sakura only contained her seriousness. "This!" Sakura pounded the ground with her right fist, and the entire ground cracked and began falling apart under the stress.

All three sound-nin where incredibly surprised at what had just happened. They had barely managed to escape the first attack. "What the hell was that?" shouted the female member. Before the dust even settled, Sakura ran charging towards the three of them. Her chakra empowered legs let her run at insane speeds. Zaku, Dosu, and Kin could barely dodge, let alone counter attack. Punch after punch after kick after kick continued to pursue them, with the surrounding terrain falling to pieces around them. Eventually, a falling tree branch gave Sakura the perfect weapon. She smashed it with another punch, and it flew into Kin and was sent flying deep into the surrounding woods. "Heh…one down." Sakura said confidently to the two remaining sound-nin. "You see that last one?" asked Dosu to his remaining teammate. "Yea, she can't be that strong and fast. There's just no way… Hold on, I have an idea."

"Whatever you two are planning it isn't going to work!" Sakura yelled charging again at the two. This time, Zaku didn't try to dodge. He planted his hands into the ground itself. 'Huh? What the hell's he doing?' Continuing her attack, she felt something wrong only a couple feet away from her target. Suddenly her legs lifted off the ground in a vortex of wind, pushing her up into the air. "I knew it…you're not that strong. You're just using chakra to push yourself. If you can't come in contact to anything, you can't push off with chakra."

'How's this happening? Shit, he's right though. I can't get out of here.' Sakura began looking around for anything she could grab onto. She reached for a nearby branch, only to be cut short by the masked nin. His right hand grabbed the top of her head, and his left forcing Sakura's arm behind her back as he pushed both of them back to the ground. "So…not as strong now." Laughed Dosu. Sakura tried to break free of his grasp, but he only pushed her arm up causing pain to shoot through it. Zaku gained an evil smile after pulling his hands out. "Hey, Dosu…how about using _that_? She did take Kin out…I think we need a little payback." Turning to face his comrade, Dosu also gained the same look. "Oh, you are cruel. Sounds fun though." Before Sakura could try to escape again, a deep, low bass sound pulsed through her entire body, as all her muscles turned into a completely relaxed state. It was coming from the contraption on Dosu's right arm.

"Wha…What is this?" Sakura looking down at her limp body stuttered. "Deep sound." answered her captor. "Ears aren't the only part of the body that actually sense sound. The rest of the body can still feel vibrations the sounds make. If you put the right pitch and wavelength, you can even manipulate bodies. I see you're quite limp after the bass completely relaxed your muscles."

(Note: I'm completely making this up. I doubt sound truly does stuff like that. Just pretend it does…k?)

"Well, you didn't want us to kill Sasuke right? Then how about you do?" Sakura's eyes grew wide at the thought of that. "I'd never do that." She angrily countered his proposition. "Oh…I think you will." Dosu pulled her limp body up to a standing position, and placed a kunai in her hands. "What do you think you can do with this?" Sakura muttered. "You'll see." Dosu let go of her body, but she didn't fall. She felt some sort of pulse running through her. Her knees buckled, and her legs skidded forward, walking toward the encampment where Sasuke and Naruto lie. Her legs continued walking shakily, as if Sakura were trying to resist. "I told you sound can manipulate the body, didn't I? You may not want to, but I can force you to kill him." A gasp only escaped Sakura's mouth as her legs continued to move without her consent.

'No…no…no…this…this can't be happening.' Sakura cried to herself. 'I was finally able to fight. Finally able to protect them, like they did me. And I…I still failed…' Sakura forced back all her tears as her uncontrollable legs brought her beside Sasuke's unconscious body. Her right arm with the kunai now began to lift without Sakura's control. Sakura couldn't suppress the tears now flowing down her face. 'No…no! Stop! Please stop!' She screamed at herself. "Now…finish it." Zaku called to his teammate. Sakura's arm then rushed downward, and blood splattered the surrounding area.

…

…

…

…

'Why? Why is this so hard? How come every time I need to do something, it costs me so much? I don't want to take any of their lives. I…I actually care about them. The first people I ever have… I don't…I don't want to kill them. If… if that's the only way, then I have no other choice. Please, just keep them safe. And…please let them remember me.'

The remaining sound-nin merely stood there shocked, as Sakura fell to the ground, screaming in pain. The kunai did not hit its target. Sakura couldn't stop her arm from moving, but she forced it to hit another target. Her stomach was bleeding profusely onto the ground. 'If they'll force my body to kill them…then…' Sakura thought to herself. Her breathing became heavy and short from the blood loss. She prayed by some miracle, Naruto and Sasuke would be spared. As her eyes closed, Sasuke's opened.


	10. I Can't Give Up

Finally finished this one. This took a bit longer then I had anticipated, but oh well. For some reason I don't particularly like this chapter... Somehow I don't think everything fit right, but I can't think of a better way to organize it. One last thing: Its always darkest before the sun rises (or so the saying goes). Oh and lastly...REVIEW PLZ!

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Chapter 10: I Can't Give Up

Sakura had been unconscious for a few hours now, and in bad shape. Naruto and Sasuke had covered her self-inflicted wound as best as they could. Things were looking bad, as Sakura's face was turning paler and paler, and her body shivered more and more. "This is bad Sasuke! Really really bad! What're we supposed to do?" a panicked Naruto asked. "I dunno, but if we're going to do something it has to be now." Sasuke replied, sounding as serious had he always was. 'That…that ungrateful…argh! He doesn't even care that Sakura could die!' Naruto thought, despising the Uchiha carrying their teammate's body.

Much to the surprise to the two of them, they came across the older Konoha nin they had befriended earlier before the test had begun. Kabuto was resting by a small stream, seemingly taking a break. Seeing this as possibly their only hope, the desperate boys ran up to their fellow villager. "Oh it's you guys." Kabuto said rather startled at seeing the two of them. "Kabuto, you gotta help us! Please!" Naruto burst out, getting straight to the point. "Why? What's wrong?" the older boy asked seeing Sasuke run up with a pale and shivering Sakura in his arms. "Holy…what the hell happened to her?" A worried Kabuto asked pulling out what little was left of his first aid kit.

Kabuto looked over the large gash on Sakura's stomach, as Naruto and Sasuke explained the situation. "That's just messed up. You mean you guys don't know how that happened?" the current "doctor" asked. "No…we just said what happened!" Naruto yelled back, still seemingly in panic. "Okay okay, just calm down. I have to concentrate if I need to stitch this up." Kabuto sighed finding a small needle in his pack. Sasuke remained serious the entire time. "Wait…you're gonna what!?" Naruto blathered while Kabuto pulled a small thread from his shirt. It wasn't good, but it'd have to do considering the situation. "That wound is too big. If we leave it she'll die from blood loss eventually. I have to stitch the wound up…it's her only hope." he replied, starting to push the needle through Sakura's skin.

Despite being knocked out, apparently Sakura could still feel something. Every time the needle pierced her skin, she flinched and made a few gasping noises. Naruto seemed to only worry more each and every time her face scrunched up from the whole procedure. It took a few minutes, but her wound was at last stitched up. It wasn't pretty, but it did the job. "So…what do we do know?" a still serious Sasuke questioned. "That's all we can do. Just get whatever you can into her system…hopefully she'll wake up soon." Naruto just sat down next to Sakura's body, still saddened by his teammate's predicament. "Great…just great…" Naruto began to almost stutter at his own words. "We've got no scroll, some maniac is after our lives, and Sakura could die any time now."

Sakura was resting peacefully now, no longer breathing heavily or shaking any more. Color once again returned to her face now that the bleeding had stopped. However, she still seemed to be in pretty bad shape. "Actually, we do have one." Sasuke said digging into his bag. "What're you talking about? You saw our old one get turned in firewood!" Naruto argued back. This was the worst possible time Naruto wanted Sasuke to be all smug. After a few seconds, Sasuke pulled out a navy blue "Earth" scroll from his bag.

"Wh…Where'd you get that?" Naruto asked surprised that Sasuke was even carrying one. "It was…on one of their bodies." Sasuke responded, not wanting to think of where he had lost control with his newfound power. "We have one…but…we can't go look for the heaven one now. Anything could happen to Sakura while we're gone." Naruto sulked back to caring about the sleeping girl. "You need one? That shouldn't be a problem." Kabuto said pulling out a heaven scroll from his own bag. "My team as an extra of each. We took out some weaklings early on, and took an extra or two in case something happened. You can have it. I obviously don't need it." Naruto and Sasuke merely stared dumbfounded by the proposition. "What? Can't a guy just be nice?" Kabuto asked confused as to why the two of them were staring. "Kabuto you're the best!" Naruto shouted crushing the now stiff Kabuto as Naruto had his body in a painful hug of appreciation. "Damn, let go man. Get off."

After Kabuto had left, Naruto and Sasuke were left to care for Sakura alone now. Hours passed into the deep night after a long and trying day. Every now and then Sakura would squirm in her sleep, trying to find a more comfortable position. "At least she's sleeping well." Naruto said looking down at her. Her face was now relaxed, looking as if it were normal sleep now. Sasuke didn't even respond. The night went by slowly, eventually turning to day break. As the sun rose and shined on her face, Sakura's face scrunched and mumbled some inaudible words. Her emeralds for eyes eventually began to open.

Naruto and Sasuke were still sleeping. Both were rather tired of the previous day's events. The first thing Sakura took note of was the sound of running water. "Huh? What's that? We weren't near water…am I…am I dead?" Sakura whispered to herself, trying to piece together what happened. She turned her head in different directions, trying to get her bearings straight. Soon she found the sleeping Naruto and Sasuke nearby. Sakura smiled a much relieved smile, as tears began to form in her eyes. "Naruto… Sasuke… you're okay!" Sakura stated as loud as she could. This stirred both boys from their sleep. Naruto smiled just as big as Sakura was, overjoyed to see her awake. However, Sasuke remained emotionless, looking as though he were in deep thought. "Sasuke…what's wrong?" Sakura asked seeing her teammate's expression. "Nothing…don't worry about it. Just glad you're up." Sasuke stated putting on a fake smile.

The good news just kept coming for Sakura, hearing that they now had both scrolls and could still pass the second exam. In the best mood since, well, a long time, Sakura felt as though she could get up and move. It was a little painful, but she managed to sit up, and then stand up and take a few steps. "You sure you're ok…?" Naruto asked after Sakura flinched after a step. "Yea, it's fine. As long as I don't stretch my stomach much I'll be okay." Sakura turned with a reassuring look in her eyes.

It took an entire day and a half to reach the tower, but the three teammates finally made it. Their luck seemed to turn, not a single problem occurred while on their journey; besides the occasional Sakura whine about her gut that is. After what felt like forever, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura entered one of the vacant rooms in the tower.

(Note: Skipping the whole Iruka heaven/earth lecture. It happens the same, and I don't want to write out that whole thing. Especially since nothing really changes, which is kinda the point. Skipping straight to the notice about pre-lims. Sorry for being lazy though.)

All the remaining teams were now assembled into the main hall in the tower. There the respective leader's of each village where standing with the Hokage himself. 'Wow…all the rookies are here. And so are so many other teams…I didn't expect so many to pass…' Sakura just looked around at all the remaining teams, but immediately focused her attention to the floor… her wound was stinging rather badly, and it hurt. Throughout the Hokage's entire talk, all Sakura concentrated on was blocking out the pain. It had hurt before, but not to this extent since she actually punctured it. She still managed to hear bits and pieces about their county's pride and strength. Not to mention… "Preliminaries? Right now?!" Sakura exasperated after the announcement had been made. 'This…this isn't good…' Sakura began to worry herself now.

The preliminaries had begun, when Sakura had to make her way to the washroom. She needed to wash her face and take a look at her stomach. She hadn't looked at it in a while. Since it didn't hurt that much, Sakura paid no mind to it, thinking it was healing on its own. Her face showed Sakura's hesitation. She didn't know what to expect… until she forced herself to open her jacket a bit to see. Sakura let out a frightened gasp at what she saw. The stitched area was almost completely black, swollen, and disgusting; and the stitching looked as if it would snap at any time. "Oh my god, Sakura!" came a shocked, yet quiet voice.

Sakura turned to see Hinata Hyuuga coming into the washroom with a frightened look on her face. "What happened Sakura? How did you get that wound?" Sakura just turned back not wanting to show the fright on her face. "It…It's nothing. Don't worry about it." she tried to sound confident about the whole exchange. "No…it's not nothing. Look! It's completely infected… I may not know much about injuries and stuff like that, but even I know you need to go get help now for that." Hinata actually sounded concerned. But then again, she was always one to worry. "I can't." Sakura said covering her midriff once again. "We don't get medical staff until the end of our match. We lose automatically if we get some now…" she solemnly replied, appreciating the Hyuuga's concern.

Suddenly, Sakura's name was called on the speaker, asking to return to the ring to begin her preliminary match. "Sorry, but I have to go." Sakura said turning to leave the room. Returning to the main area, Sakura was shocked to see who her opponent was. "Ino…" Sakura growled under her breath. 'No way am I quitting now… I have to get payback, and this might be my only chance.' Sakura clenched her fists as she made her way down to the ring. 'Had it been someone like that Gaara guy, Sasuke, Naruto, or even that creepy guy Lee, I would have refused…but not this opponent. I have to win…' Her thoughts finished entering the ring.

"How's it going forehead? Long time no see." Ino smirked seeing her pink haired opponent. "Yea, good to see you too…pig" Sakura spouted back. "I wasn't talking to you; I was greeting that monstrous forehead of yours." Sakura's body tightened and began to strain, her wound growing more painful. "That…is the last time you mess with me!" Sakura shouted, enraged at one of her main bullies as a child. "Then start already." motioned the match judge.

Sakura ran head on towards her opponent. Despite her injury, Sakura could still use chakra to move herself faster. Much to Ino's shock, Sakura managed to land a right hook onto her shoulder, and it did some serious damage. "Damn it…when did you actually get good?" Ino angrily questioned, rubbing her sore shoulder. "I was actually training while you were too busy flirting with Sasuke. Maybe you should try it sometime." Sakura cracked back. Now both girls were infuriated with each other.

Sakura charged again at her hated rival, but in mid step she felt her stomach suddenly sting horribly. It caused just enough of a slowdown for Ino to return the punch Sakura had just given her. Sakura did nothing to retaliate from the attack. She was too shocked from the stinging and punch at the same time. Ino was quick to take advantage.

Ino quickly landed a few more punches on Sakura, forcing her backwards. To finish her combo, Ino spun and landed a hard kick…right into Sakura's stomach. Sakura flew away from Ino, landing on her back and grabbing her gut in obvious pain. "Is that it forehead? I was hoping for something better than that." Ino taunted her opponent. 'No…not yet. Hang on…a bit longer.' Expressing both pain and anger, Sakura forced herself from the ground, but every movement caused more and more strain on her body. "I…I won't give up…not now." Sakura whispered to herself. Ino was merely standing there, amused by her opponent's struggle. 'I've got one chance…just one.' Sakura thought. Ignoring everything her body told her, Sakura launched one last desperate attempt to win. However, it only lasted a few steps.

Only a step or two in…Sakura felt an insane pain in her stomach. It felt like something had ripped and sliced her open. She fell to the ground immediately, clutching her midriff and crying out in her obvious pain. Ino, as well as everyone else, thought it was nothing more but the end of the match…until the blood became visible. Sakura continued gasping and moaning out as a pool of blood surrounded her body. She then felt something in her throat, and tried to keep down whatever it was. Chocking, Sakura coughed up blood onto the ground in front of her. "I…I didn't hit her that hard…I… I couldn't have done that." Ino quietly said to no one in particular.

Immediately two medic-nin with a stretcher appeared down in the ring, and placed a still coughing, although no longer with blood, Sakura on it. "No…not yet…I… I can still…" Sakura whispered to the two men. Her eyes filled with tears that fate had again handed her pain and defeat. Finally they had made it to the medical wing of the tower. The doctors that where going to treat Sakura gathered around her, getting ready to operate on her injuries. An oxygen mask was placed over her face, as Sakura lied there breathing heavier and heavier. Finally one of the doctors came up to her and held out an anesthetic injection to knock her out. "No…no more…please…" Sakura quietly moaned…moving her arm trying to stop from being injected. Another doctor held her arm down onto the stretcher as she felt a sting in her arm. Within a matter of seconds, Sakura's vision began to blur, and everything began to spin. Eventually the tired and wounded girl was forced into unconsciousness; her body now under the knife.


	11. Still Weak

Hooray, another one done. So glad not having a lot of schoolwork so I can continue to write this. Again, I feel as if this didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped. I promise to make the next one as best as I possibly can (even though I try to do that all the time). REVEW!

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Chapter 11: Still Weak

After a few hours of surgery to remove the infected skin itself, Sakura was changed into a standard hospital gown and placed in a soft bed in a rather small room. It was barely the size of a normal bedroom, if not smaller. It was a private room, which apparently everyone who watched her matched had asked for. They were correct in thinking that a private room was best; Sakura would want nothing to do with anyone else for a while.

It took some time, but Sakura finally gained some consciousness from her forced procedure. Her emerald orbs were watery, and she couldn't see well…her vision was fairly blurry. She moved her right arm to rub her eyes a bit, thinking it was merely a side affect of what happened. After a second or two of moving, a slight tug pulled at her wrist. Looking at where the pull came from, Sakura saw an I.V. blood pack dripping into her. It was after seeing the pack did she realize how pale her skin looked, and how heavy her arm had become. Sakura didn't want to somehow mess with her necessary blood pouch, she tried her left arm now. Until again, she felt a pull from her wrist. 'Not another one…' she groaned to herself. It was indeed another I.V., but not a blood back this time. It was some form of anesthetic, keeping her body in a weakened and mostly numb state.

This time the pale girl groaned out loud this time, although her voice was rather soft. Looking at her surroundings, she found nothing special about the room, not that it mattered though. One window and a door, a small table and a chair; that was it. Still looking further, Sakura found a 'call nurse' button next to her hand. She didn't hesitate to push it as an older nurse walked into the room. It seemed as if the nurse had been here for some time, as she didn't acted surprised at all once Sakura described her symptoms. "Why are they keeping me numb? I feel so weak…I can't move well."

"That's for your own good dear." the nurse replied looking over her medical chart. "You let that get infected rather badly, and you'll be on some pretty strong antibiotics for a while. They can be painful, and they'll mess your head up for a while, so it's just to make you more comfortable." Sakura just returned a confused look. "I…don't get it. How long will I be on those? I want to move…my legs feel so stiff." The nurse returned the chart to the tray on the door and returned an almost sympathetic look. "Listen, that infection was really bad, and it'll be a while before it stops bothering you. It's a rather powerful drug, and you'll need it four times a day until it goes away in a week or two. It will probably kill you if we don't treat it." Sakura let out a sad and annoyed sigh. "I see…" was all she managed to let out.

"I'll get the doctor assigned to you so we can start your treatment." The nurse stated leaving the room. "The sooner we start, the sooner you'll get better." the older woman smiled to the weakened girl. After a few moments, the doctor entered the room. He appeared almost as old as the nurse had been. It seemed as if the daily stress of a hospital caught up to him over the years. He merely mentioned it was an injection when asked about the treatment. Sakura got the impression as if she were just a sick girl in for a cold, and that there were more important things than her at the moment. 'It's probably true though… I'm just some sick, weak little girl here for her shots…'

Eventually the doctor returned with her 'treatment'. As said, it was an injection… and a rather big one at that. Sakura just stared at it with rather wide eyes. 'Now I know why they want to numb me up forever…' Sakura whined to herself. However, the doctor just put the syringe down on the table, and removed some of the blanket to Sakura's left side. "What are you doing?" Sakura question the doctor, pulling some tethers around her left arm, securing it to the bed. "Just to make sure you don't move." was all she got as a reply. "I have to put it in a precise spot or it won't work. Oh, and before I forget, this stuff has some kick to it. For the two weeks you'll be on this, you'll be pretty out of it." 'What does that mean? It can't be that bad…'

After Sakura's arm was completely immobilized, the shot was injected to her. Sakura groaned in pain at how deep the shot needed to be, and how much needed to actually be put in to her. She was grateful for the anesthetic now. If it was this bad numbed up, how bad would it be without it? A few seconds passed, and the older man removed the syringe from her arm and placed a bandage on it. He un-strapped her arm, which she couldn't move anyway, and left saying he'd be back in a few hours for the next one. Sakura just felt dizzy, and found it difficult to do much of anything. She tried to move, but her body refused to listen. She tried to call to someone, but her mouth wouldn't form words. What came out were indecipherable mumbles. She began to feel a little lightheaded, and her body felt like it was mush. Not to mention Sakura's thought process slowed greatly. It was difficult to react to anything going on.

After about an hour or so, the shot was still in full effect. It was difficult to concentrate, as the old nurse came in to check on a now disoriented Sakura. "How are you feeling dear? Any better?" she questioned, although probably knowing Sakura couldn't really respond. Not able to actually talk, due to the medicine, Sakura merely groaned at her discomfort. The nurse just sighed and said, "Sorry, I probably should have told you a bit more about it. It can completely kill your infection, but it greatly slows your body's functions while it's in effect." The old woman finished while filling a cup with water. The nurse tried to help Sakura get some water into her, but to Sakura the cup was moving around. She couldn't figure out where it was until the nurse held her still to give her some water.

After the glass was empty, Sakura just laid back, with some of the water running down her cheek a bit. The side-effects didn't seem to be letting up at all. 'Man…this is…humiliating…' The nurse was putting away the glass when Sakura tried to ask her how long the effects would keep her like this. However, it came out quite different. "ow…wlon wel I ee ike des?" It took all of her concentration and effort to make it even understandable. The nurse turned to face her with a slightly confused look. "You mean the results of the medicine?" The tired patient didn't even want to try to talk again, and just nodded her head as best she could. The nurse just sighed and sat next to her. "This is the hard part, child." She stated as kindly as her old voice would allow her, "On the schedule you'll have to be on, you'll be like this for quite a while. Maybe even as long as the two weeks we need to treat you." Sakura just looked down at this development. She was going to be completely helpless for two weeks.

After a few hours, Sakura received her next injection, and some hours after that, her third. It went on and on like that for quite some time. Eventually people had begun to visit her. Most of the rookies in her age group visited, including her own teammates and teacher. Everyone was very concerned for her at first, but eventually the visits were less and less as her scheduled date to check out drew nearer. Naruto was her most constant visitor. Often times he would just sit there, just to visit and have someone with her. In Sakura's current state, it was difficult to really appreciate any of it. The blonde had also become Sakura's unofficial feeder. Whenever he was there, Naruto would help Sakura eat, seeing as she could do little for herself. Even though she couldn't tell exactly what was going on most of the time, it still felt nice having someone there.

After two arduous weeks in the hospital, Sakura's body was infection free at last. She had to stay one more night, to wait for the final side effects to wear off. Once Sakura woke the following morning, everything she saw was clear and her voice had returned to her. However, she didn't return to full form. Two weeks of anesthetics and antibiotics severely weakened her. She could move, walk, and so on, but it took considerably more effort than Sakura felt was actually needed. At last Sakura could finally check out though, changing back into her usual outfit before leaving. "It's weird having normal clothes on again…you just get so used to the other stuff." Sakura sighed at her escort. Much to Naruto's displeasure, Kakashi and Sasuke had left to do some training. 'Lousy jerks wouldn't even show up to walk me home.'

It was rather late in the afternoon when the two departed to Sakura's home. Naruto continued to whine about how Kakashi never taught him anything cool, and always played favorites with Sasuke. 'Well…at least he's the same.' Sakura thought, annoyed that she had to begin listening to his dumb rants again. Everything was going like any normal walk home would have been until Sakura tripped on a rock and fell hard on the ground. Sakura tried to push herself up, but her arms just couldn't take it. Her eyes grew wide feeling her arms straining. 'Come on…come…on…just push. It's not hard!' Sakura yelled to herself. She knew her body had weakened from her stay in the hospital, but this was just excessive. After a moment of looking on, Naruto helped her up from the ground. He asked if she was okay, but she only returned his concern with mutters and grunts on how she didn't need his help or sympathy.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help. If you don't want me here, then I'll just go. I'd rather go get ramen somewhere." Naruto glared. "Who said I wanted your help?" Sakura returned the upset stare. "Fine then." Naruto finished turning the opposite way down the road. As he left, it almost felt as if her eyes showed some sadness. 'It doesn't matter; I don't need that annoying loser.' She scolded herself finally reaching her home.

Even though Sakura was greeted warmly by her parents one she arrived (she had told them she wanted to walk home by herself to think), she went straight to her room, without even saying a word. Inside her room remained pretty much the same, but she noticed her headband was placed on her dresser. After stepping inside, her bed showed it was slightly crooked, and not quite leaning up against the wall. 'Why does everything have to be annoying today?' she sarcastically asked herself. After placing her hands on the side and giving her bed a push, it refused to move an inch. Despite her trying, Sakura just couldn't move it over. She let go of the side and stared at her hands with large and frightened eyes. "It…It's not that heavy…I should be able to do this." her whisper containing a bit of fear in it.

Sakura dropped to her knees, and clasped her arms around her body, almost as if trying to hold herself in as her breath suddenly grew heavier. She had to rely on Naruto just to get off the ground, and she couldn't even push something that shouldn't be a problem to move. "Why… Why am so WEAK!?" she cried to herself, placing her face on the sheets of her bed, crying into it.


	12. Save Me

Hooray for too much free time! Okay, even though this is fairly short, I spent a ton of time on this. I wanted everything to be just right, at least IMO about it. One thing though, some people I know (not on have said its too depressing, etc. (coughgenrecough). So, that's that. If this is a little confusing, feel free to ask. The next update may take a while, as I'm not incredibally sure on where to go from here. Still deciding. And REVIEW!

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Chapter 12: Save Me

After returning home, Sakura refused to leave it. She was more depressed than she had ever been. She spent all her time just lying on her bed, with the exception of going down at night to get some food. She didn't train, or even move. After all the struggles she went through, all the pain she endured, Sakura had finally given up…and accepted that she was weak and a failure altogether. She failed to help in her missions, she failed in her training, she failed to protect her team when they needed her most, but worst of all, she had failed herself.

Her parents tried their best to help their daughter, only that nothing reached her. Every time they talked to her, she would just stare away, not even acknowledging them. Eventually her teammates were brought in to try and coax her out of it. Unfortunately, they too had failed to change her feelings. Their withering flower refused any and all help that would be offered to her.

Weeks passed, and the small and now helpless girl remained where she was. Her hair was horribly messy from lying down all the time. Her eyes staring at the wall, dull and listless. The blank wall, she decided, was herself; plain, ordinary, without any true color to itself. After a while, she felt a pressure in her stomach, and scrunched her legs together. She merely sighed, and left the safety of her bed to her bathroom that was connected to her bedroom.

Turning on the light hurt her eyes. Sakura kept her room as dark as possible, closing the blinds as far as they would go, and never turning on any lamps. The dark hid her failure from the world, and she sought refuge in it. Finished with her diversion, Sakura went to return to her bed when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

Her body looked worn out, as if pushed to its limit too many times. Her eyes had no shine, and had deep bags of weariness underneath. Pink hair turned all over her head, her bangs now so long they covered half of her eyes. It was a pain, she admitted, but she never felt like doing anything about it. It looked as if she had no energy to her at all, as if she were just some overgrown doll tossed aside because it was no longer useful.

Sakura just turned and went back to her messy and still crooked bed. Her eyes returning to the blank wall she identified with. After hours of staring, the dull emeralds closed for sleep, which came rarely to her now. When she slept, she had no dreams. It was only an inconvenient period of unconsciousness for her now. Her mind was blank, empty like the hole in her heart. There was nothing…save one small sound that could barely be heard.

"Help me." it whispered. "Help…someone…anyone…please…" The voice was soft and sad; almost knowing her cries would go unheard. The voice continued to call until it suddenly stopped in an instant. Sakura's body didn't feel heavy anymore….it felt quite light. She thought that at first, but realized nothing had changed and that she was falling. She felt herself falling forever, her mind replaying all the horrible moments that had made her weak. This became a torture to her, even if her face did not show it. As the last image of her pushing Naruto away when he helped her from her fall ended, tears formed in her eyes. The dead flower struggled to keep them in, but to no avail. The hot tears fell freely down her face, and then leaping off as her body continued to fall. "It…it isn't fair." He small voice muttered, "Why always me? Haven't I suffered enough? I've failed everyone I've ever come across, or was never even given a chance… Haven't I suffered enough? Why do I have to continue to be tortured like this? Just let it end, make it all go away, I can't stand this anymore…please…I want to die…"

The sleeping eyes flew open with a shock, and Sakura found herself with tear stains on her cheeks, and her body curled up in a small circle holding itself. Her breathing was heavy, still unsure about what had just happened. The pink head turned to look at the digital clock on the other side of the room. It was already the next morning. 'And my tortured life goes on…' she sighed to herself. But today was the last day. The dispirited blossom would get the help she needed, whether she wanted it or not.

Sakura turned and stared at her wall again, when her door burst open. It had startled her, but she didn't move, or even react to it. Nothing mattered anymore. "Get up." the voice said. "I wasn't asking…get up." it said again. "Fine…if you're not going to move your sorry ass out of here, then I will." Before Sakura could comprehend that last statement, she was lifted off the bed and slung over the person's shoulder, and being carried out of her room and out of her house.

"Damn it Naruto! Put me down now!" Sakura screamed to the frustrated boy. She struggled against his grip, but was unable to break it. When she realized Naruto had no intention of letting her go, she pleaded with him to put her down, almost begging for it. He ignored every word, and continued to their destination. Finally Naruto had stopped; they were back in their old training ground. "Why did you take me here? Put me down now!" This time he complied, practically tossing her to the ground. Her body landed with a thud as her back hit the ground.

"What the hell was that for!?" Sakura screamed. Naruto just stared at her with probably the most serious and angry look on his face she had ever seen. "N..Naruto? Wh…what is it?" Her voice was much smaller now, and filled with a sense of dread and fear. The boy still didn't comment. Her small, fragile body began to shake nervously, and uncontrollable tears passed down her face. "What…what do you want with me!?" she cried out.

Sakura began to sob uncontrollably, her body clutching itself from its shaking. "Stand up." Naruto ordered. An intense fear filled her sad eyes, as she forced herself to get off the ground to stand. Her knees began to shake, as the pitiful sobs continued. Once she was standing, Naruto walked right up in front of her. The frightened girl could just stare at him and continue to whimper. She had no idea why she was scared out of her mind, but she was…and Sakura couldn't control it.

Her face was dripping tears now, she was afraid as to what was going to come. "What do you want from me!?" Sakura shrieked. Her reply came in the form of a backhand to her face. Her quivering legs gave way as she fell to Naruto's feet. She didn't move beyond that. Her body was shaking from the shock that a friend had just hit her. Her crying refused to stop, and her sobs and whimpers began to grow worse. "You're pathetic." Naruto scolded. "Wha…what?" Sakura softly whispered. "I said you're pathetic. Look at you. Do you have any idea how weak you look right now?" Sakura just continued to cry harder. "Stop…stop…" she pleaded. "If you want me to stop…make me." his voice just as serious as before. "please…Naruto please…stop… please!" Sakura spoke between cries.

"You really are weak. You're not the Sakura I know." The crying, shaking girl lifted herself to a sit, but still focused to the ground. Her emeralds began to sting from crying so much, and started to turn slightly red. "You know what you are?" Sakura refused to answer this. She was too afraid of what might happen. "You're nothing but a quitter. And do you know what quitters are?" Sakura forced herself to look up, showing how pathetic she looked then. "wha…what?" she managed to choke out. Naruto kneeled down to her level. He sat there staring at her for a moment, looking straight into Sakura's quivering, tear-stained face. "N-n-n-aruto?" she pleaded. Without warning he grabbed her shirt by the collar and forced her face into the dirt. "They're nothing but dirt. As low as you can go." Naruto forcefully said, shaking her face in the hard, rocky dirt below them.

After Naruto had finally let go of her, Sakura curled up, trying to hide her face…her whole body shaking. "Now… you have two choices." Naruto said. Sakura didn't respond. She continued to cry and sob, trying to make it all go away. "You can stay like this. Pathetic, weak, and afraid of everything in life… or you can come back. You can come back to us, train with us, and go on missions again. You can go back to being an actual person again." Hearing her choices, Sakura turned her head to look up at him from her small position on the ground. Naruto could see the small scratches inflicted on her face, mixing with the dirt and tears. Slowly, Sakura got up to her feet. She was still crying, but less and more controlled now. She walked forward to where she was right in front of him. Her breathing was heavy and her eyes only showing pain.

In a moment of self-pity, Sakura fell to her knees. She reached her arms around him and dug her face into his jacket. This took Naruto by surprise; he wasn't expecting this out of her. Amidst her renewed sobbing and whimpering, her still tiny voice managed to squeak out. "Naruto…please…save me…" The relieved blonde looked down and said with a much kinder tone, "Sure. Come here tomorrow…so we can help."


	13. Coming Back

Back again. This time with something a bit more upbeat for a while. I know last chapter seemed a bit harsh, but it was better than a standard dialouge that normally wouldn't make a difference in her mood. Anyhoo, a nicer happy chapater I felt was due. Even I began to feel this was a bit too depressing for its own good. Okay, getting some mojo back, and some ideas are flowing. More to come. REVIEW PLEASE!

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Chapter 13: Coming Back

For the rest of the day, Sakura's emotions seemed to change almost every five minutes. She continued to cry until Naruto had to carry her home to get her to move. On the way back, her attitude changed to a hopeful smile, and then annoyed that no one forced helping her sooner. Needless to say, Naruto was quite confused. Eventually, the rapid exchange of emotions got the better of her, as she quietly fell asleep once they reached her house. Her now "best" (although she'd never openly admit it) friend placed her back on her bed, and she slept with a rather peaceful look on her face.

Sakura's eyes slowly opened after having a good sleep for once. Once she realized she was back in her room, she remembered everything that had happened. She gained a sad smile, glad to know one person at least cared. She walked to her dresser and picked up her now dust covered headband, and held it close to her body. It seemed so strange to look at it now, but her smile knew it would eventually come back to her. Looking across her room into her bathroom mirror made Sakura shriek. "Oh my god! I look awful! And Naruto took me out in public like this!? He is so dead!" Finishing her sentence, she merely laughed a little. 'Maybe I'll let him go…just this once…'

The now energetic girl spent the entire afternoon fixing up her appearance. She clipped her bangs to where she could actually see again. She noticed her hair had grown passed her shoulders some, lightly touching her back. In her head, Sakura toyed with the idea of long hair and seemed to like it, so she let the rest of her head be. Her face…was another story. Everything about it just screamed emotional wreck. Not to mention the rest of her looked as if nothing had been taken care of in days. 'Ew…how did I let myself get like this?' She silently laughed to herself. The hot water felt so good on her unwashed and tired body. The shower seemed to wash all her pain away, and the shampoo felt great in her knotted up and un-kept hair. 'Dang...this is so nice...'

Stepping out of the shower, and wrapping a clean towel around her body, Sakura could feel how relaxed she felt. Looking at her clean self in the mirror to re-examine her appearance, her body seemed…different. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something had changed. It didn't seem to bother Sakura though. It was a mere afterthought in everything she was focusing on. Getting everything back to normal took longer than she liked, but it was worth it in her mind. It was still relatively early in the afternoon, so Sakura felt like she should go out for a while.

Putting on a clean set of clothes, Sakura found what had changed about her. She had grown some. It was slight, but she could feel it. Her usual shorts seemed slightly higher, and tighter around her hips and waist. Her dress felt more constricting…in more ways than one. She was slightly embarrassed about it, almost deciding not to go out, hoping no one would notice the changes. However, she hadn't been out in what seemed like forever, so she decided against staying home.

Sakura had no particular destination, but she just wanted to walk around for a while. It was nice seeing the village again. It seemed almost foreign to her now. She just continued to walk, appreciating the sites until some girls brushed past her. One looked back and one of them stopped running. "Sakura?" Ino said turning back to face her. "I…Ino?" Sakura questioned back. 'Great…the last person I wanted to see.' as her smile faded some. Sakura just looked down at her feet until Ino put her in a welcoming hug. "I haven't seen you in forever! You feeling okay? We practically forgot you existed." Ino mentioned as Hinata and Tenten came back noticing Ino had stopped. The two of them seemed just as surprised as the blonde was; seeing that Sakura was out.

"Oh yea, I almost forgot." Ino said, as her smile faded off her face, letting go of the hug. "I just…wanted to apologize…for what happened." Ino's confession made Sakura gawk a little. Of all the things she knew about Ino, this was the last thing she expected. "Uh…don't worry about it?" Sakura mumbled back, almost confused as to what to say. "You were just trying to win your match." "I don't mean that as much." the taller blonde girl stated back. "I meant everything, the match, teasing, and everything. Seeing you like that in the hospital made me wish I hadn't been so mean to you." Now this…was a shock. Desperate to change the topic to anything but this, Sakura just spat out the first thing that came to her mind. "So…where were you hurrying off to in such a rush?" Ino looked up from her feet during her apology, and gained a small grin in the process. That was when Tenten came into the conversation.

"We were really bored, so we asked Hinata to use her Byakugan to see if there was anything interesting going on we could do. Of course when she started blushing, we knew something was up. And apparently Sasuke is training by the falls outside of town…without a shirt!" Both Ino and Tenten started slight giggles. "We were just going over there…this chance isn't going to come often." Ino said, her grin growing. "Oh yea, you wanna come?" Tenten called after the three girls ran off again. "Um…no thanks, I have things to do." Sakura lied, not really having anything else to actually do, but seeing a teammate she didn't care much for without a shirt didn't exactly appease to her.

The rest of the day was spent merely walking around, enjoying things she hadn't seen in a very long time. It took a hungry stomach to realize that the sun was going down, and dinner seemed great. The shocks of the day continued as her parents were surprised to see Sakura actually come down to dinner… and actually spend time with them. After much question dodging, supper was finished and Sakura turned to go to sleep early. As much as she was looking forward to tomorrow, she knew it was going to be hard as well.

It was still slightly dark out, as the alarm blared off, waking up its target. Again, slamming to the floor, the alarm went off on its own. 'Damn…I still hate that thing." Sakura whined to herself. But today would be a good day, she thought. She went through her previously normal morning routine; eating breakfast, showering, getting dressed, etc. She felt the tightness again in her clothes. Sakura made a mental note to go shopping later. Finally, she tied her washed off headband in the front of her forehead. And as per usual, her bangs tugged at the metal frame of the front. Not wanting to worry about it then, Sakura left her house, practically running to go training again.

Much to Sakura's surprise, everyone in team 7 was there…including her teacher being on time for once. "Well, this is a surprise." Kakashi calmly stated as the two boys looked up from trying to get some last minute sleep in. "Great! You're back Sakura!" Naruto laughingly said, obviously happy Sakura had shown up. Even Sasuke seemed slightly happy to see her. "I was beginning to forget we had a third member." he casually said, actually having a small smile on his face. Having all the attention on her made Sakura put a huge grin on her face, happy just to be back.

Their sensei said that Naruto and Sakura should train together, while he and Sasuke went off to finish something. "Damn it…I hate it when he always picks Sasuke…" The upset blonde muttered under his breath. "I didn't come to hear you whine." The still happy girl stated. "I came to train remember!" This brought Naruto out of his melancholy mood, as they had to decide on what to start with.

The two of them decided that standard strength and speed exercises seemed like a good place to start. The first thing they did was run and jump as fast as they could through the tree branches in the woods. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Sakura found it difficult to keep up, and almost fell off a few times. By the time they were done, Naruto was perfectly fine while Sakura was breathing rather heavily. The same applied to strength training as well. Her arms and legs just couldn't stand the weight oftentimes.

Sitting down and taking many deep breaths, Sakura began to feel a bit worse about coming today. "I didn't realize how far back I'd gotten…" Sakura panted looking at what little she had been able to accomplish. "Well duh." Naruto flatly replied. "You did nothing for what? Three weeks now? Of course you can't do anything good." All this managed to do was snap a chord in Sakura's head. "I'll show you nothing good!" Sakura yelled punching the ground and causing quite a few cracks to appear.

The days and weeks passed, as Sakura made improvement little by little. Eventually, most of her original strength had returned to her, and she was finally allowed to go on missions again…even though they were the same remedial chores they had been before. Naruto, apparently, hadn't changed a bit. He would still whine and complain about every little thing they had to do. Sakura enjoyed remembering their nicer past for a while, but it just got on her nerves eventually. Their dark haired teammate, however, was a different story. True, he was happy at first to have the pink haired girl back, but over the weeks he became more and more distant. More so than he had been before the "blank period" as Sakura called it. She refused to talk or think about that period, thus calling it the "blank period". It would be a blank period in her life… one she would try to forget.

Sakura tried talking to the often brooding Uchiha at first, but eventually stopped bothering. He seemed distant from everything, almost as if in deep thought all the time. She often wondered what he could possibly be thinking about, and it worried her a bit. However, she just tried to make the best of things, especially since everything had, at last, returned to mostly normal.

One night, Sakura had been unable to sleep. She didn't know why, but she just couldn't. She got out of bed, combed her now waist long hair, and put on a pink tank top and jean shorts she had recently bought for herself. It was still summer, and nice out, so she didn't wear her small white jacket, which would've completed her now normal wardrobe for her ninja duties. One last look at her appearance, she smiled and left. Her hair had now become something she became quite proud of, and was at least one thing that made up for her still worrysome forehead. Sakura just walked around a practically empty village. A few people working late night, and quite a few drunken people where the only people she managed to see. After getting a rather creepy look from a drunk man just tossed out of a bar, Sakura felt like she should go somewhere a bit more…open.

The only place she could think of were the village gates, which were always rather empty. She leaned against the gigantic doors, looking up towards the nice sky. 'It's so peaceful out…' Sakura continued to enjoy the peace and quiet for a while longer; until she heard some footsteps start to grow closer to her. Looking down to the road in front of her, she saw Sasuke coming towards the gates…with a backpack.


	14. Leaving

Whew, that took longer than expected. Major thanks to kii-sama. Even though I found this a bit more difficult and time consuming, in the end run I think it made a ton of difference overall. Not to say that I'm not thankful for any reviews, I'm happy with all of them. Yea, beginning of the end for this story. I can't quite decide on how I'm going to do this...but I'll figure this out later. For now, just enjoy this chapter and review!

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Chapter 14: Leaving

"S…Sasuke. What are you doing here?"

Sakura questioned, slightly confused on why her dark haired teammate would be out so late. Of course, she wanted to ask about the pack he was carrying, but that could wait.

"Hn. Sakura? I could ask you the exact same question."

As per usual, Sasuke refused to give even the slightest hint about what he was planning. This only caused Sakura to get slightly frustrated. She thought she was over getting angry at him for his personality, but it seemed that wasn't the case.

"If I answer…will you?" she quickly responded showing a slight glare, crossing her arms.

"Probably not." 'Damn, I was hoping no one would see me.' Sasuke quietly scolded himself.

"Then what's the bag for? Going anywhere in particular?" Sakura didn't seem like she was asking any longer. It was more like she wouldn't stop until she got an answer.

"I don't think that's any of your business…Sakura."

The questioning didn't seem to get anywhere, so Sakura tried a more personal approach. Sasuke could tough out any sort of threats and the like…save one.

"Since we're on the same team, it is my business. Or do you only think of yourself… Mr. no longer noble house Uchiha?"

Sakura finished almost with a smirk. She knew she had him now…at least she hoped. Probably the one thing that irked Sasuke was the one thing that would probably most obvious. No one spoke down to his clan, especially after what happened.

"If you think that's going to get me riled up, you're sorely mistaken. As I said, it's none of your business." Sasuke had obviously figured out her attempted riling.

For once, Sasuke had to swallow his Uchiha pride to eventually get what he wanted. He started walking towards the gates themselves, not even looking at his soon to be former teammate. Of course, Sakura wouldn't take no for an answer, and unfortunately she had a feeling that him leaving wouldn't be an ideal choice for any of them. As he passed, she quickly grabbed his wrist stopping him from moving.

"Let go…now. I don't want to have to force this." Sasuke stated with his usual calmness. This caused Sakura to grip even harder to his wrist.

"Not until you tell me where you're going…and…why?" Sakura asked, with a slight hint of feelings of betrayal at this.

He didn't want to answer…and that disturbed her. Even though they didn't particularly care for each other, they were still teammates. That still had to mean something…right?

"As for the why, that's still none of your business…" Now Sakura was getting angry. Sasuke could tell as her face turned into more of a frown with her eyes narrowing. "…as far as the where goes…it's a little place called Sound." The mention of _that_ man caused a slight gasp from Sakura as she unwillingly let go of his arm. "Good. Now that you're done, I'll go now."

Sakura just stood there shocked for a few moments. What reason could there possibly me to go to that place? To that man? It made no sense to her. But, it didn't matter. She wasn't about to just let one of her teammates go that easily.

"Don't!" she quietly yelled to him. "If you leave…you'll be labeled a traitor. If they find you you'll be killed. What could make you even consider taking that risk, and abandoning everyone you have here?" The last part of her sentence hinted at sadness in her voice. "Well…?" Sakura asked turning around to look at him.

This just caused Sasuke to sigh angrily at the persistent girl. "Power." He simply stated.

"P…Power?" was all Sakura could reply to this, quite confused.

It made no sense to her. He was already stronger than pretty much anyone in their age group, and was practically guaranteed a high ranking office once he was older. "Why?" was all she asked.

"This place is far too weak." Sasuke began to explain. "No one here is strong enough to make me who I want to be. I'm already stronger than anyone in our age group. No doubt Naruto's told you how I beat Neji in the chunnin exams."

"That doesn't mean you can't get stronger here!" Sakura practically shouted back to him. Still, he refused to even turn around to look at her. She could feel herself losing control over herself.

"It still doesn't mean I'll get what I want. He can give me that. He gave me this power and I'll learn to use it from him. Besides, on the topic of being weak, I thought you'd be an expert at this. After all, you're clearly the weakest."

Much like himself, Sasuke knew Sakura really only had one thing that would really anger her. She had finally gotten over her self imposed weak state, and reminding her of that would send her over the edge.

Sakura just opened her mouth slightly, unsure of what to say. 'I'm… still weak? No…I trained so hard to get back here. He…he won't continue to put himself ahead of me.' She thought to herself.

"Fine. If you can't be talked out of it or reasoned with, I'll just show you how strong I've gotten."

This caused Sasuke to give a slight "Hn." After a second or two Sasuke finally commented on Sakura's threat. "Are you serious? Do you honestly think you can beat me?" He continued to mock Sakura. This just started the entire blaze.

"Then I'll sure as hell try…" She angrily whispered to herself as she charged at the Uchiha whose back was still turned to her. She began to force chakra into her hand, hoping to end this quickly with one punch. Her pink hair flowed as she ran, her eyes showing anger.

Sasuke seemed correct in his assumption about Sakura. He dodged her first attack rather easily. Now her left hook missed; then her right, and then her kick. Every move Sakura tried had hit nothing but air. After pushing chakra into her arms so many times, she could feel herself getting slightly tired.

'This isn't good. I still can't do this very long yet.' Eventually, Sakura stopped her attacks for a few moments, her breath panting at the exertion.

"That's all? I thought you had at least a little bit more power than that? Thanks for proving my point." Sasuke slightly smirked at this comment. However, Sakura was unable to see it. He had dodged every one of her attacks without even turning around to face her.

This just put Sakura into another fit of rage. "Of course that's not all. I was going easy, hoping to end this fast. I was a little afraid of hurting you, but it seems I don't have to hold back after all…" However, both of them knew it was an empty threat.

Rather than attack him directly, Sakura punched the ground with her chakra infused fists. The ground began to crumble beneath them, this time forcing Sasuke to move this time. As he left the ground, so did Sakura. She hoped in the air he wouldn't have anywhere to dodge. Another right punch actually managed to reach Sasuke…only once it hit, the boy turned into a block of wood in a puff of smoke.

'Shit. When did he be able to do signs that fast? I couldn't even see it!' Sakura innerly worried. Now she was out in the open, and knew that wasn't a good place to be. She ran and turned her back to the tree. Her hands gripped the bark, holding on to her supposed safe spot. 'Damn…where did he go?'

After looking seemingly everywhere, she caught no sight of his blue shirt, or dark hair anywhere. Her eyes grew wide when she thought of the one placed she hadn't checked.

'Above…'

Her hands just gripped the tree harder, as her head turned upward into the branches of the three. There was nothing…only leaves. All they did was sway as the wind passed through their branches. Sakura began to relax some until she felt a strong pain in her shoulders and hands.

While she was distracted, both her shoulders and her hands were pierced with kunai, stuck to the tree. Now she was trapped, with her arms immobilized. Sakura had fallen right into Sasuke's attack.

"So, do you get it now? You can't win." Sasuke said revealing himself from the other side of the crossing. Now Sakura was more upset that she did virtually nothing to stop him. "I'll just leave you there until the morning guard finds you." The boy said turning to the gates. Sakura just turned her head down, then suddenly losing herself to her final thought on how to stop him.

"What's the matter? Too afraid to finish me off? I thought guys who had power could kill without mercy. I guess you're not one of them."

She could feel the blood start to slide down her arm, but that didn't matter. If she didn't stop him now, she never would.

Frustrated, Sasuke was forced once again to stop. "As if you would know of such people, weakling." the soon be deserter replied. He turned around to face Sakura, seeing how much she was actually bleeding now. He kept his overly serious look, as his arm started to acquire static. Then he began walking towards her as the static was now full lighting. "If that's the way you want it, don't blame me for this then. You brought it on yourself."

Meeting her teammate's serious look, Sakura replied with a slight smirk. "You don't have the balls. You wouldn't kill a teammate."

It was then Sasuke seemingly disappeared. Once she realized he was gone, Sakura began to look frantically for him. That was until an unbearable pain pierced her chest, as her eyes just grew wide seeing what happened.

Sasuke's attack had gone right through her chest and ribs, his arm still covered in lighting. The electricity continued to damage her insides with a burning sensation. She stared at him, with a scared and panicked face. Honestly, she didn't think he'd actually do it. She thought that it would make him realize that it wasn't what he wanted. Sakura's quivering lips tried to speak to him, but the first thing that came out was a large cough of blood spewing onto the ground. That was shortly followed by more violent coughing and the occasional gasp for air. Her head then faced the ground, with almost no strength to keep anything up.

Sasuke's face seemed to show no remorse, or any emotion. He had remained completely calm and cool, despite just severely wounding one of his own teammates. Before he turned to leave, he removed the kunai holding Sakura to the three, saying one last thing.

"I might need these later."

Finally he turned to leave the village. He thought he was home free, but little known to almost everyone, the gates had an alarm at night, that when opened…would sound an alarm to bring ANBU straight there. It was believed that night would bring unwanted intruders.

Sakura could see Sasuke walking away. She couldn't breathe… she couldn't speak. Her eyes, still wide, began to let a few tears escape. She took one step forward, and immediately fell to the ground face first. More pain was sent through her wound as it crash into the concrete. The only thing Sakura felt was her life leaving her, as she desperately tried to move, which only resulted in slight twitches of her fingers and toes. Her gasps were the only things forcing air into her body.

The grass surrounding her began to turn red. It stained her pink top, and turned her long hair into a deep and dark red. The pool streaming from her widened slowly but surely. Sakura's coughing fits continued, further contributing to the blood loss. Her eyesight was starting to leave her, as the entirety of her torso had become completely numb. Immediately, she figured she was going to die, and closing her eyes for what she thought was her last time.

After a few moments, a group of three ANBU members arrived to the gate. They had expected some enemy ninja, but found something different. Seeing Sakura, bloody and beaten on the ground wasn't something they had expected. The three of them slowly approached her body, their emotions completely under control inside their masks. The leader reached down to check her pulse, as none of them had seen her move while on the ground.

Before his fingers could even reach her neck, the dieing girl coughed out more red liquid, and resumed gasping for air. However, she remained unconscious.

"Shit." was all the first member could say. He quickly picked Sakura up, and rushed to the nearest hospital. All three of them knew she wasn't going to last long, and every second mattered to her life.

Apparently, this night wasn't meant for sleeping. Naruto, too, was awake. He was sitting at his always messy kitchen counter, eating a cup of instant ramen he had made. Like his usual self, the only thing that bothered to wake him up was a craving for his favorite food. The blonde sleepily ate, not particularly focused on anything until he heard a knock at the door. He quickly passed it off as nothing. It was two in the morning…who could possibly be knocking on his door at this hour?

"Naruto, open the door." came Kakashi's voice reaching through the door. There was some slight worry in his voice. Hearing him, Naruto just merely groaned, his eyes still half closed for weariness.

'What does he want? It's too early for this.' the boy whined to himself. He casually opened the door, as it was never really locked. Looking up at his teacher now, Naruto simply yawned, "What's up sensei? It's too early for this…even by your standards."

"Something came up." Kakashi stated back, with a serious look in his only visible eye.

A few moments later, a ramen cup hit the ground and spilled all over the place. Naruto just stood there shocked and confused at what his teacher had just told him. It didn't make sense.

"W-what? You…you're joking right? Sakura's not…" he began to mutter back to his teacher.

"No. I'm serious. She's been in the emergency room for some time now, and should be out soon. Or so they said; you can never tell these things." As he finished, Kakashi turned to return to the hospital, Naruto close behind.

Naruto still couldn't believe what he had heard. It didn't make sense to him. Why would Sakura be at the gates? How could she get injured like that? He continued to question when finally they reached the hospital Sakura was taken too. Once Naruto ran through the doors he practically yelled to the receptionist.

"Where's Sakura?! I need to see her! Is she okay!?"

Normally, the receptionist would tell the panicked boy to sit down and be quiet; but seeing his face made her think otherwise as she looked in her charts as to where she was now placed.

"She's in intensive care right now. According to a doctor just off duty, she just left the ER a few minutes ago." Looking down back at Naruto, the woman quickly added, "It's on the fourth floor, but you can't go inside, just look."

She didn't even get to finish before Naruto ran to the elevators to reach Sakura. Kakashi was forced to hurry as well, not wanting to let Naruto do something he'd later regret.

'That boy just can't seem to think…' Kakashi muttered under his breath.

The elevators could never go as fast as Naruto had wanted. Once they were open, he began to run all over the place, looking for the room Sakura was in. Being intensive care, all the rooms had big enough windows to look into the rooms themselves, as so the patients could be monitored. It took him a few minutes, but at last he found the room Sakura was in. Catching a glimpse of her, he immediately stopped in his tracks, only looking inside, shocked, scared, with tears beginning to form around his face.

Sakura was lying in a bed…completely pale and unmoving. Blood IV's were put on both of her wrists, slowly dripping into her. A small patch of her wound was visible, more stitching than actual skin left. A breathing tube was down Sakura's throat, keeping any hope of her living going. Despite this, her chest raised and lowered irregularly, and seemed to struggle regardless. Her face was pained, and scrunched as if the wound still hurt her. She was still making muffled coughs despite the tube down her. Many monitors where attached to Sakura's body, making odd noises.

For hours, Naruto just stood there, staring into the window at his friend. Over time, doctors came and doctors went, making various notes on clipboards. Naruto would ask every one of them on her condition, and all of them said they weren't really sure. Finally, one mentioned that the Fifth Hokage, being an expert medic-nin herself, would come later to take a look at Sakura.

Kakashi eventually recommended that Naruto go get changed into actual clothes, instead of staying in his bedwear, and to get something to eat. Naruto only did the former, getting his usual clothes on and rushing back to the hospital. Once he returned, he found Tsunade inside Sakura's room, looking her over.

Inside, the still worried boy watched as probably Sakura's last hope look her over. Her hand turning a light blue, Tsunade placed it over Sakura's wound and closed her eyes. To Naruto, it seemed as if she were looking for something in particular. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and removing the blue glow from her hand. She turned to the other doctor, shook her head, said a few words, and left. Seeing her reaction, Naruto was crushed. Seeing him standing there worried, the fifth went over to Naruto. She gently touched his shoulder kneeling down to him.

"Naruto, I know this is hard… but there's nothing I can do. Her heart and lungs are completely bruised and scratched by whatever did that to her. We can't operate on that. If we did, it'd kill her. She might have a few days at most. I'm sorry."

Naruto gave no response back, but just cried some knowing she would die. He wished it had been anything other than that news.

"Since we know now, Sakura's going to be moved to a room that allows visitors. At least you can be with her now."

Naruto nodded slowly, still not actually talking to Tsunade. She didn't mind, and expected this type of reaction. Shortly, two doctors came and began wheeling Sakura out of her intensive care room. Naruto followed her closely, not wanting to lose sight of he pale, white face. Once they reached her knew room, Naruto sat beside her, lightly taking her hand.


	15. I'm Sorry

Chapter 15: I'm Sorry

Sakura's hand was cold and stiff. It didn't feel like a person's hand at all. Naruto felt the bandage wrap over her hand from the kunai wound, which didn't seem to be healing well. He could feel the cold fingers slightly twitch every now and then, along with most of Sakura's toes as well. Her face hadn't changed from its pained and exhausted state, as the kunoichi's chest continued to rise and fall inconsistently.

Even though the dieing girl's fate had already been sealed, Naruto couldn't believe it…or more that he didn't want to. Despite having some stupid arguments and the like here and there, there was no way he'd want Sakura to die. It wasn't fair, that someone who worked so hard had to come to an end like this.

Eventually, morning came, and the news spread around to Sakura's family and the other genin squads. Needless to say, her parents were grief-stricken. Soon after, a few of the teams came to see what they thought was nothing more than a rumor. As a surprise to absolutely no one, Ino and Hinata completely broke down crying after seeing her. Over the past few months they had gotten rather close to Sakura, despite their nasty history. Sakura had even considered them friends and constantly did things with them. However, Naruto didn't really talk to anyone; he just sat there still holding Sakura's hand.

Time passed, from morning to night, to tomorrow, and the day after that. Nothing about Sakura's condition changed. Her body continued to struggle to live, as her eventual death grew nearer. On the third day of the lonesome girl's comatose state, Naruto had no choice but to accept what would eventually happen.

Another accident at one time brought another patient into critical condition, and they needed a full breathing tube to survive. However, this patient had a chance of surviving their own ordeal. The other young girl recently admitted needed it to have any chance of surviving, and there were none open at the time. The only one that could conceivably be used was from the girl who wasn't going to live. Sakura's parents decided to give it up to help the other girl who desperately needed the machine.

"But…Sakura needs that. She can't breathe without it!" Naruto angrily said to the doctor who came to remove the breathing tube and take it to the other patient.

"I'm sorry kid, but this other patient needs it. She isn't going to make it, so we need it for someone who actually has a chance."

"But she needs it! She…she…" Naruto eventually stopped, knowing he would not win this argument. Despite his own wants, he knew it eventually would end the same.

Naruto had to stand on the other side of the room as the breathing machine was being removed. It was longer than the blonde thought it was, and somewhat gross looking (even though he had expected that much). It was the aftermath that made him cringe.

Once the tube was out, Sakura's coughing fit returned. They were loud and deep, as the only thing putting air into her right now were the short gasps in between the fits. Her fingers clutched the bed, as the pink head shot out an even more painful expression. After a few moments a standard oxygen mask was placed over her mouth, as Sakura seemed to calm down some. However, Naruto could hear some coughs and weak inner breaths from time to time.

Once again the saddened boy took his seat beside her, as Sakura's parents decided enough was enough for the day. After all, it was close to the end of visiting hours. Naruto hated leaving her alone during the night, and after about ten minutes or so he's sneak back into her room through the windows, and close the blinds so no one would see him.

Today would be no exception. Once eight in the evening rolled around, Naruto and a few other visitors including Ino and the rest of her team were asked to leave. All of them complied, knowing they didn't have much a choice in the matter. Also as per usual, ten minutes later Naruto came back in through the window and resumed his seat.

As he sat there with only one small lamp giving light, he wondered about Sasuke. At first he was enraged that he hadn't showed up to visit their dieing friend until he was announced missing. This was probably the hardest few days of Naruto's life: One teammate was dieing and the other seemingly deserted them. He didn't care at the time.

'That lousy jerk can wait. Sakura can't.' He thought gently using his thumb to stroke the top of Sakura's hand as he held it.

Ever since the breathing change Sakura seemed to slowly get worse and worse. Her breathing rate seemed to drop slightly every now and then, as well as the rest of her vital signs. As bad as it was for the tortured blossom, it was seemed even worse for Naruto. Seeing her in constant pain made him feel worse than anything. Everyone involved seemed to just want it to end.

Tonight would be that night.

The waiting boy could feel his eyes beginning to drop some, but that was quickly shaken off as he heard some small gasps and soft whimpers has Sakura's hand began to clutch his. This moved Naruto closer to her bed, wondering what this could possibly be about. After about a minute from when the quiet moans started, the weakened emeralds of her eyes opened a crack. This act alone almost brought the orange clad boy to tears.

"N-n-n…ar-u…to?" Sakura's voice could barely be heard, as she moved her head as much as she could in his general direction.

"I'm here Sakura. I'm right here." He eagerly said, but trying to keep his voice down trying not to startle her.

"Wh-Where…" After starting Sakura had to take a deep breath, realizing her throat hurt from not getting air. "…am…I?"

"The hospital. You were in intensive care for a while…and that…and…" Naruto could feel the water start to form in his eyes. He couldn't bring himself to tell her what would inevitably happen to his teammate. It would hurt too much.

"I…I'm no-t-t g-g-oing t-to ma-ke it…huh?"

Every word she spoke, Sakura had to break into parts to talk. It hurt, but she wanted to talk to him. He was probably the one person Sakura would want to talk to in this situation. After finishing thinking about what exactly was going on, she began to let small, weak tears to stream down her pale cheeks.

"Sakura…what's wrong? You need something? What?" Naruto asked very worried. He wanted to make her comfortable. Especially since neither of them knew exactly how long Sakura had left. "Do you want anything?"

The pale, white face turned to look over at him, nodded, and replied.

"H-hold me…I-I'm…cold."

At first the visibly upset Naruto was confused as to what she actually meant. "What do you mean? Just…pick you up?" Once again he got a small nod.

So, changing from his chair to the bed next to him, the still saddened boy sat down next to her, and slowly titled Sakura's upper half up some. After lifting her as gently as he could, Naruto brought her body close to his as she laid her head against his left shoulder.

"You-re…warm…" Sakura whispered using the last of her strength to dig her face and body closer to his. Naruto's body felt so good to her, as cold as hers was. She was perfectly content to lie there for a short time. After a few moments the tears once again began to fall, as Sakura could feel herself losing control.

"Sakura…what's wrong?" he said looking down at her.

"I…I…I do-nt want t-to die. I do-n-t wa-nt to. I'm…scared. And…I…I owe you…so…much." It was difficult to push out, as each word only made Sakura feel worse, as her emotional state continued to deteriorate. In addition to her tears came soft sobs as she once again tried to move herself closer to his body.

These words now made Naruto begin to cry slightly. These words…they made no sense to him. What could she possibly owe him? It confused him, as he couldn't figure out what she meant.

"What do ya mean, Sakura? You don't owe me anything." Naruto quietly spoke, using his free hand to wipe her tears away.

"No…I…I do. You-ve al-ways…been th-ere f-for me. Y-you always…h-elped m-me. And I…did n-noth-ing for…you." This too was hard to speak out. Sakura forced deep breaths afterwards. It was getting more and more difficult to breathe every minute.

"Don't say that…ever! You don't owe me anything!" Naruto said completely clutching her whole body now. It hurt her slightly, as Sakura let out a soft, but painful whimper. "Oh god, sorry! I…I didn't…"

"I-I'm sorry…" Sakura quickly interrupted.

"Wh-what?" Naruto asked flabbergasted. First she was saying she owed him, now she was…apologizing? "Sakura stop… don't say those things." He quietly pleaded.

"No…I-I'm sorry. I…" Sakura looked up at his face, tears still flowing from the small cracks of her open eyes. To Naruto, it seemed that she wanted desperately to say something else, but again came the apologies. They continued to come until Naruto just stopped her.

"Stop it! You don't owe me anything, and you don't have anything to say sorry to. I did it because I wanted to. We're friends right? With everyone else… It's okay to do things like that." Naruto gently put his hand to her white, tear stained face. Unfortunately, this seemed to make Sakura worse as she continued to cry and sob into his shoulder.

Nothing was said for a long time, as Naruto continued to hold the dieing girl close to him, as it was obvious Sakura was weakening. Her breaths seemed more pained and forced, as both of them could hear the heart monitor hooked up to her soft body gradually slowing. Sakura's time was coming, and both of them knew it.

Eventually, Sakura's coughing returned. It wasn't as bad as before, but it was still a negative sign. It was apparent she had a hard time staying awake, as the slight openings she had for her eyes began to droop closer and closer to closing.

"Na…na…" Sakura's voice was practically nothing. Inaudible to anyone who wasn't directly next to her. She was weakening quickly. The soft green orbs refused to even put out tears she was so tired.

"What…what is it?" Naruto's voice seemed even desperate now. He didn't want her to go so soon. Even though it felt like forever, the clock only showed her small eyes had only been open for no more than ten minutes.

"I…sor…ry…"

Finishing her last thought, Sakura's eyes closed shut as her body weight alone pressed against him. Naruto brought her as close as his arms to put her, as the waterworks resumed on the boy's face now.

"Sakura…"

After another eternity, the only thing giving Naruto any hope ended as a long, high pitched beeping began, as all the lines on the screen went flat. He just reached over and turned the machine off. He didn't want to think about it as he continued to hold her.

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Two days later was Sakura's funeral. Naruto didn't want to go, but did anyway. It was going to be painful, but there was no way he was going to leave her now. After all, she died in his arms.

The amount of people who actually showed up wasn't that big. Sakura's parents, an incredibly small amount of distant relatives, Naruto, Kakashi, and the other genin squads where the only ones there for Tsunade's brief speech about her. The ceremony as a whole seemed shallow and dry, but the crushed boy was thankful for it nonetheless. For the hokage to take time off to speak at a funeral for an ordinary genin member meant a lot to everyone.

Afterwards came a brief recess, where all the guests could take one last look at their dead flower and prepare to leave for the cemetery. Naruto was the last to walk up to see Sakura's face for a final time. She was wearing a long black dress which went down to her knees, which deeply contrasted with her pink hair which was pulled into a braided ponytail in the back. It looked nice…but it didn't seem like Sakura. Her face was incredibly pale, as her body seemed smaller than usual. Instead of the usual Sakura, she only looked like a sad and lonely girl. At least, that was what Naruto thought. Finally, the still young boy couldn't take any more, as he too left to get ready to leave.

It was sunny out, and warm. A slow, soft breeze kept everything cool to make what would've been a perfect day otherwise.

'It shouldn't be sunny out.' Naruto sadly thought to himself as the burial commenced. 'It shouldn't be so nice out. Sakura's gone. It can't be this nice out.' He had looked all day for something to be mad at, to try and push the sadness out. Naruto just stiffened at his thoughts as finally the last plot of dirt patted down.

It was then did the blonde actually look around to see everyone. At the end of the row, he could see Ino completely falling apart at the scene. Shikamaru and Chouji were desperately trying to get their teammate to calm down some as she was making a scene of herself. Next to their team was the other rookie group. Hinata too was crying, but obviously in more control than the other girl was. Everyone else, although sullen, did not seem to be on edge like Naruto was. He was going to turn to the other end, but decided against it. Looking at Sakura's parents would probably push him over the edge.

Eventually, people began to leave for the day. The first was their teacher, who seemed oddly used to this sort of thing. Kakashi hadn't said a word the entire day, but Naruto really didn't want to talk to him for a while. He was the only one left after all; Naruto would see plenty of him for a while. Finally, He was the last one left at the dead girl's grave.

He stood in front of the stone with her name and the two dates on it. The boy couldn't bring himself to leave yet. It seemed difficult for him. Over time, his legs got tired as he then sat down in front of her.

Sakura looked back at him. She stood on the ground over her where her body lay, wearing her usual shorts, pink top, and white jacket she would normally wear. Despite the breeze, her long hair didn't blow with it. She missed that feeling. Sakura grew quite attached to her hair; she thought she looked good in it, whishing she had grown it out sooner. She stared at the sullen boy, with a small sad smile with kind and gentle eyes, and she waited with him.

Finally, the sun began to set, as Naruto too had to leave from his house. As he got up from his spot, Sakura tried to ask out a "Wait.", but it didn't come out. Her voice was mute and gone. Next she tried to hold onto his wrist to keep him from leaving, but her hand went through his.

'I can't reach him now… I'm dead stupid. I'm dead…there's nothing I can do now. I still can't help him…' Sakura innerly scolded.

Forcing this thought into her head, Sakura let out one small tear down her face, knowing she failed him again. Every step of him leaving hurt a little bit more…until a thought came to her. Slowly, Sakura followed him. She followed Naruto home, and everywhere after that. Sakura would never again leave his side. It was the only thing she could do…and she wouldn't fail him this time.

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'I'm sorry…I wasn't brave enough to say I love you.'


	16. Author's Notes

Author's Notes:

Sad ending huh? That was probably the most difficult chapter to write, as even I couldn't figure out how to really end this part of the story. Sorry if that chapter wasn't that detailed. As I said, this was hard to write and I had a difficult time getting my thoughts in the right way.

Well, this is the end of my first fan fiction ever. However, this isn't the end of the story. I want to write one or two other things first, but I'll come back to this. It'll continue on, showing Naruto's life afterwards from Sakura's point of view. I somewhat felt constrained having to follow at least a general outline for this one, so I think the next one will be better having almost complete freedom as to what actually goes on. So, look forward to it!

Thanks to all who read this!

Nay1


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